State football officials 'not happy' after meeting with CoA

The development is worrying as a visiting FIFA-AFC team last month told the Indian stakeholders to approve a new constitution by July 31 and conduct elections by September 15, failing which the world body can ban the All India Football Federation. A FIFA ban would mean India losing the right to host the Women's U-17 World Cup, scheduled for October. State officials said the meeting was "inconclusive" and they were "not satisfied" with the outcome.

A seven-member committee was representing the state associations. But the CoA said it will take into consideration all the suggestions from the state representatives while finalising the draft constitution. "We had a fruitful meeting with the state association members and valuable suggestions were exchanged.

The CoA will take into consideration all the suggestions that have come so far and finalise the constitution to be submitted to the honourable Supreme Court," CoA member SY Quraishi said in a statement. "All efforts are being made to finalise the AIFF constitution at the earliest and place it before the honourable Supreme Court. We expect the AIFF elections to be held immediately after the apex court approves the constitution," another CoA member Justice (Retired) Anil Dave said.

It is learnt that there are still at least half a dozen points of disagreement between the state associations and the CoA. One major disagreement is the application of age and tenure rules to all the executive council members of the state associations. Sources said the CoA also wants the strength of the executive committee of AIFF to be reduced to eight.