All India Football Federation (AIFF) president
Praful Patel chaired a meeting via video conferencing with all the State Member
Associations and the AIFF Executive committee today.
Senior Vice President Subrata Dutta, AIFF
General Secretary Kushal Das, Technical Director Isac Doru, CEO of Leagues
Sunando Dhar were also present in the meeting,
Patel expressed his condolence to the people
of India who had lost their loved ones in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and
asked the entire online gathering to maintain a minutes’ silence in remembrance
to the lost souls.
“It is a very difficult year for the country
and football in general. Almost everything had gone for a toss since last year,
due to the pandemic. But we have still been able to complete the Hero Indian
Super League and the I-League, though in a much shorter time,” said Patel.
“As custodians of football we need to do the
best we can to ensure that football can resume as soon as it is possible, and
that players’ careers are not wasted. We are at a time when we are seeing
challenges that we have never seen in our lifetime. Would request everyone to
be careful, vigilant, and under the circumstances, do the best we can.
AIFF Technical Director Isac Doru also gave a
brief presentation on how the COVID-19 Pandemic has affected football across
the world. Drawing examples from 23 countries across the world, including the
likes of the Netherlands (Eredivisie), Argentina (Liga Profesional de Futbol),
Mexico (Liga MX), Romania (Liga 1), Japan (J-League and J2-League), Mr. Doru
showed how different countries from across the world have frozen relegation
during the time of the pandemic, in order to help the teams in difficult times.
The AIFF President also declared his
intentions to write to the governments of every state in order to get the
senior footballers of the respective states vaccinated on a priority basis. “I
plan to write to the heads of the governments of every state to give priority
vaccinations to all the senior players. This will help us resume footballing
activities a little earlier than usual, once the situation becomes more
stable,” said Patel.
Linda Miller
May 03, 2021 16:05 [IST]