Kalyan Chaubey, the newly-elected president of the All India Football Federation, addressed the media at the AIFF headquarter on Friday and said he “will engage with all stakeholders to take Indian football forward together.”
Chaubey edged out former India captain Bhaichung Bhutia in the election as the AIFF got a former player as its president for the first time in its 85-year history. The 45-year-old former India goalkeeper won the election with a 33-1 margin.
Indian Football: Kalyan Chaubey is the new AIFF president – the first former player elected to post
“At the outset, we will work on a short-term plan, and will then meet in Kolkata later this month,” Chaubey was quoted as saying by the AIFF. “We have fought in the Supreme Court together for the last 19 months, and it has taken up a lot of time, effort, and resources from everyone to reach this stage,” he added.
NA Haris and Kipa Ajay were elected as the vice president and treasurer respectively, along with 20 Executive Committee members (14 from state associations and six co-opted former eminent players).
Chaubey added: “I want to involve all eminent footballers to work on the different challenges Indian football is facing today, and to realise the dreams of the respective states. After 100 days, we plan to unveil the roadmap for Indian football and take the next step.”
The new AIFF executive committee comprises GP Palguna, Avijit Paul, P Anilkumar, Valanka Natasha Alemao, Maloji Raje Chhatrapati, Menla Ethenpa, Mohan Lal, Arif Ali, K Neibou Sekhose, Lalnghinglova Hmar, Deepak Sharma, Vijay Bali and Syed Imtiaz Husain.
Bhutia, IM Vijayan, Shabbir Ali and Climax Lawrence will be in the EC as players’ representatives.
Indian football: Kalyan Chaubey – What you need to know about first ex-player to be AIFF chief
Chaubey also stated that he had received a call from Fifa president Gianni Infantino.
“He (Infantino) wanted to meet me in Zurich or Doha later this year,” said Chaubey. “I briefed him the importance of the next few days. We have the Fifa U17 Women’s World Cup India 2022 next month, and told him that we need to discuss amongst ourselves how we plan to take things forward. We will then present our plans to him in detail.”
He added: “We plan to reach out to various schools to extend our outreach at the grassroot level.”
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