Last week’s Fifa suspension of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) had sent tremors through the corridors of power. The Supreme Court on Monday had to modify its verdict, which effectively removed the Committee of Adminstrators (CoA) formed to run the federation after the sports ministry filed an application for the same.
The larger question is whether such CoAs are the answer to all the ills that plague the national sports federations (NSF). For example, had the AIFF conducted the elections in December 2020 itself, then things would not have come to such a pass.
Then there is another school of thought. “When you know very well that individual votes will not be recognised by Fifa, why did the CoA jump the gun? The government would not have lost its face,” one official said.
It’s not just in football, a CoA has its footprints on hockey, table tennis and judo at present, while in equestrianism there is an observer.
“I think instead of a CoA, a sports tribunal will not be a bad idea in India. It will have hearings on a day-to-day basis and give its decisions,” lawyer Vidushpat Singhania told The Telegraph.
He has a point. Fifa, the world governing body, has insisted on the removal of the CoA and never disregarded the Supreme Court. So if a tribunal is formed to settle disputes through arbitration, future bans on any sporting federation can be avoided.
“Post the modified verdict on the AIFF, any NSF can move court saying it’s in danger of suspension by the world body and get the CoA scrapped. The suspension threat has been used by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to maintain the status quo,” said an official of one of the federations.
Rahul Mehra, the petitioner in the AIFF case before the Delhi High Court in 2017, harped on the same thing in front of the two-member bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice AS Bopanna on Monday. He said disbanding of the CoA may have an impact on other sports bodies where such committees have been formed by court orders as it would become a precedent.
But that may not be the case with every federation. For instance, the axe falling on the TTFI and CoA taking over over the reins was an after-effect of star table tennis player Manika Batra’s match-fixing allegations against a national coach. The International Table Tennis Federation took cognizance of the matter but no ban has been slapped upon it.
“The AIFF is an isolated case. The government had to win back the hosting rights of the Under-17 Women’s World Cup. Here the stakes were much higher,” a lawyer, who did not wish to be quoted, said. Recently the Delhi High Court came down heavily on All India Chess Federation secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan for violating the sports code but the apex court allowed him to continue as an interim arrangement since he was tournament director of the Chess Olympiad.
“The officials cock a snook at the sports code yet the government acts according to its convenience. The onus is on the ministry to weed out these elements. Otherwise, CoAs will remain as the only mode to get rid of officials,” one chess official said.
