Praful Patel, the ousted president of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), in his “farewell speech” to the member-associations, said elections need to held at the earliest. Otherwise India could be banned by Fifa.

“It was sort of a farewell speech where he thanked the members and, at the same time, warned that if elections are not held as early as possible India could face sanctions from the world governing body. He said he is expecting a Fifa delegation to visit India next month,” a member, who attended Sunday’s virtual meeting, told The Telegraph.

The Supreme Court appointed a three-member Committee of Administrators on May 18 to manage the affairs of the federation and adoption of its constitution in line with the National Sports Code and model guidelines. That ended Patel’s reign as the AIFF president. Patel, according to the member, said the Fifa statutes do not allow outside intervention — the CoA in this case.

“On the members’ request he has agreed to write to Fifa not to ban till elections are over,” the member said. Patel is a member of the all-powerful Fifa Council.

India are scheduled to play the Asian Cup qualifiers in Calcutta on June 8 and will host the Under-17 Women’s World Cup in October. On Saturday 25 state associations participated in a virtual meeting to chalk out future plans.

The following resolutions were unanimously passed:

• State associations shall collectively work in suggesting necessary changes (objections) in the draft constitution.

• A seven-member committee has been formed to study and make in-depth deliberations on all aspects of the draft constitution and make suggestions (objections) before submitting it to the CoA. The members are: Subrata Dutta (IFA), Shaji Prabhakaran (Delhi), M Satyanarayan (Karnataka), Vijay Bali (Punjab), Avijit Paul (Odisha), Mulrajsinh Chudasama (Gujarat) and Lalnghinglova Hmar (Mizoram).

• State FAs shall stay united to meet the ongoing crisis and work together to restore normalcy.

• Democratically-elected state bodies should not be ignored by AIFF while organising any football activity in the respective states. All initiatives should go through state FAs.