AIFF condemns IOA's decision to exclude football teams from Asiad contingent

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) today condemned the Indian Olympic Association's (IOA) decision to drop the national football teams from the upcoming Asian Games contingent.

"The Committee strongly condemned Indian Olympic Association's decision to debar football teams from participating in the forthcoming Asian Games scheduled to be held in Jakarta," the AIFF said in a statement after its executive committee meeting here today.

The meeting was chaired by AIFF president Praful Patel and attended by top office bearers including secretary Kushal Das.

The IOA, earlier this month, omitted the men and women's football teams from the Asian Games contingent, stating that they don't stand a chance to win medals in the continental event to be held in Indonesian twin cities of Jakarta and Palembang.

Among other decisions, the committee unanimously ratified the 2018-19 club licensing regulations.

Meanwhile, in a further effort to curb age-fraud, the TW3 test, which has been accepted by the Supreme Court as an age verification test as well used extensively by the BCCI, has been implemented by the AIFF for all age-group competitions including club competitions, state tournaments and even national team competitions, the statement further added.

The costs for the tests would be borne by the respective clubs and state associations.

Also abiding by the FIFA regulations, the Committee ratified the use of five substitutions in age-group competitions along with an extra substitute if the match is stretched to extra-time.

The Committee also recommended that a standard draft agreement be circulated to the clubs which will include all clauses which need to be included as per FIFA regulations. However, the clubs would be allowed to use certain variable clauses as an annexure. This will be implemented from the 2019-20 season.

During the meeting, the Committee was also appraised about update on AIFF's Centre of Excellence coming up in Kolkata and the FIFA Forward programme.

It also decided to grant provisional affiliation to Dadra and Nagar Haveli which would later be approved by AIFF's General Body in the AGM meeting later.