New Delhi, Sep 2: Former India goalkeeper Kalyan Chaubey has defeated Bhaichung Bhutia 33-1 in a one-sided All India Football Federation (AIFF) election for the post of president, while NA Haris defeated Manvendra Singh 29-5 to become the vice president of the country’s football body.
Kipa Ajay will be the new AIFF treasurer after he defeated Gopalakrishna Kosaraju 32-1, with one vote declared invalid.
IANS had recently published that the trio was favourite for the top posts, but what caught the onlookers by surprise was the margin of victory.
It was expected to be close contest between Kalyan and the poster boy of Indian football Bhaichung for the post of president, Haris and Manvendra for the post of vice-president and Kipa Ajay and Kosaraju for the post of treasurer, but the one-sided results came as a huge surprise.
After the Supreme Court order, returning officer, Umesh Sharma, had stated that the election will be held on September 2 at the AIFF headquarters in Delhi and the results could be announced either on September 2 or 3.
Initially it was decided by around 28 of the 34 state football associations of the electoral college, who met in a hotel here in the Capital before the nominations were filed, that only one person will file nomination for each post so that he/she can get elected unopposed.
But some members walked out of the meeting and took a decision to file nominations.
On the very first day of nomination, Bhaichung had filed his papers for the post of president, which was proposed by Andhra Pradesh and seconded by Rajasthan. This was followed by Manvendra Singh of Rajasthan filing his nomination for the vice-president’s post and Gopalakrishna Kosaraju for treasurer’s post.
The top court had said it was modifying its previous orders to facilitate the revocation of the suspension, which had been imposed on the AIFF by the international football federation (FIFA) and the holding of the Under-17 Women’s World Cup 2022 in India.
