Why has FIFA banned India, and what happens to Indian football now?

You might not have noticed, but the percentage of people who live in FIFA member countries has recently decreased by around 20%.

This is due to India’s temporary suspension from international football. India has 1.4 billion people.

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) was banned last week, according to FIFA, for “flagrant violations of the FIFA rules” brought on by “undue influence from third parties.” The Bureau of the FIFA Council, which includes president Gianni Infantino and the presidents of each of the six continental federations, unanimously reached the decision.

To address the issues, the Supreme Court of India returned temporary administrators’ responsibility over football in the nation to AIFF officials on Monday.

Insiders are optimistic that the ban will end quickly, but confusion is roiling administrative circles in New Delhi and elsewhere, seriously jeopardizing the nation’s ambitions to host the Women’s Under-17 World Cup in October.

The Athletic consulted with specialists in Indian football to explain the current situation and potential next steps.

According to Mihir Vasavda, a journalist for The Indian Express, “This issue has been ongoing for the past four years.” According to him, the controversy started when the Indian government proposed new regulations for the nation’s sporting federations.

The Sports Code, a new regulation, was created to address claims of poor governance in sporting organizations, which have frequently faced accusations of corruption.

Former football player and current TV analyst Pradhyum Reddy claim that some of these federations were being controlled like fiefdoms by those in power for more than 20 years. people in their 75s to 80s. Many of them lack knowledge of the sport they are responsible for.

After Praful Patel, a 65-year-old career politician and member of parliament for the Nationalist Congress Party had served three terms as president in December 2020 but still held the position, the country’s supreme court disbanded the AIFF in May by the new rule and appointed a three-member committee.

FIFA was forced to intervene as a result because of its rules prohibiting “political meddling” by national governments.

Vasavda continues, “They assumed FIFA was just threatening them. It all began with a straightforward modification to the constitution.

After FIFA concluded that Indian government arbitrators had overstepped the mark, Indian government officials are now rushing to fulfill FIFA’s requirements for lifting the suspension.

The committee attempted to implement ambitious regulations including bringing equal participation from each state and recruiting ex-players, says Reddy, adding that “the arbitrators tried to do too much.”

He adds that recent sanctions against Benin, Kuwait, Nigeria, Iraq, and Pakistan are indicative of the fact that “they should have known FIFA was going to react.”

When “the AIFF administration regains complete control of the AIFF’s everyday business,” according to FIFA, the suspension will be lifted. Vasavda says that, even though the situation is not challenging, the IAFF’s status quo was intolerable because the “public impression of the IAFF was horrible.”

He continues by saying that one of the biggest issues with Indian football is that, despite being some of the major sources of cash, the country’s clubs have little influence over how things are conducted.

India’s population is enormous, but it performs much below its potential on the world stage. The men’s squad rarely makes it to the AFC Asian Cup semifinals and has never been to a World Cup final. The women’s team has likewise had trouble; they have never advanced past the Asian Cup and have never appeared in a World Cup.

In some ways, according to Indian football journalist Arka Bhattacharya, things have gone backward in a nation where the game has a long history. For instance, the Durand Cup, the nation’s premier domestic cup competition, is the third-oldest club competition in the world, behind the Scottish Cup and England’s FA Cup. It is also the oldest club competition still in existence in Asia.

In the last few decades, according to Bhattacharya, cricket has quickly surpassed football as the most popular sport among the general populace. The turning moment that allowed cricket to burst as the main spectator sport in the nation and make the Indian Premier League one of the most lucrative sporting events in the world was India’s triumph at the 1983 Cricket World Cup. 

The AIFF is of little value if few people in the country are participating in the sport, as China has discovered in its quest to become a footballing powerhouse.

Reddy makes the point that despite having a population of only 3.5 million, which is less than many Indian cities, Uruguay is a footballing superpower, having won two world championships and been rated 13th by FIFA. Kosovo, whose men’s team is placed 106th, two spots below India, has a population that is approximately 0.1% the size of India.

Alessandro Del Piero, Nicolas Anelka, and Roberto Carlos all moved to India as a result of the Indian Super League actively encouraging “marquee signings” for a brief period in the middle of the 2010s. There are now a few foreign players, but there are no household names well-known to European audiences.