Experts' take: Why Indian sports governance is in a mess

FIFA dropped a bomb last week, Indian football had no bunker to hide in. The world body found the way things are being run in India's administrative corridors as "serious violation of the FIFA Statutes" and pulled the shutter down on the All India Football Federation (AIFF), putting the 'suspended' label across its face. This effectively meant that, as things stood at that time, India would also lose hosting rights of the FIFA u-17 women's World Cup scheduled to be played from October 11-30 this year. It therefore wasn't a big surprise to learn that the Sports Ministry had moved an application in the Supreme Court seeking an end to the mandate of the Committee of Administrators (CoA), as demanded by FIFA. While banning the AIFF earlier this month FIFA had said that the women's age-group showpiece tournament "cannot currently be held in India as planned." FIFA's decision to take the extreme step was an example of the inevitability Indian sports and sportspersons had been fearing for some time. Like the hockey, judo, equestrian and table tennis federations, the AIFF too was put under a court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), after the Supreme Court removed the AIFF office-bearers in May this year for failing to bring its Constitution in line with the 2011 National Sports Code and not holding elections that have been due since December 2020.

(Photo by Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images)And when the AIFF couldn't bring its house in order by the deadline of July 31 given by FIFA, the world body de-rostered it, with players facing the brunt of it. There was of course a huge question mark over the women's U-17 FIFA World Cup to be held in India later this year and more immediately, the Gokulam Kerala FC team was told to