AIFF convenes Executive Committee meeting after elections panel member 'shares' findings

All India Football Federation ranks. At the core of this issue is the three-man committee, formed on February 10 this year, and the clear divisions within as the extended deadline for their findings ended last week on April 30.

The back and forth, copies of which are in possession with Times Sport, reached a point when on Tuesday, the AIFF called for an Executive Committee meeting for Thursday. It was in response to an earlier mail forwarded by MA Haris of the Karnataka State Football Association, fellow member of the three-man panel constituted to look into the legalities and expedite the holding of elections, to all 36 member states of the AIFF.

Haris shared what he insists are his personal findings, in the hope to rally support and force a Special AGM where a resolution for elections be passed. Along with sharing two different sets of meeting minutes which he alleges are highly disparate from one another, Haris also claims that he was compelled to reveal findings as the two other members - Subrata Dutta, Sr vice president and Jessiah Villavarayer of Tamil Nadu - did a volte face as a April 19 court hearing neared.

Of the April 19 strategy, Haris says in his shared mail, he "was told by the AIFF Gen Secy, 'We are fully prepared and no new inputs (are) necessary'." That surely goes against the very basis of why this Committee was formed," he reasoned. President Praful Patel will not chair Thursday's ExCo, instead it would be addressed by Dutta as the next in command.