[Author: Vidyut Muralidharan, Third Year B.A LLB (Hons) student at the National Law School of India University]

INTRODUCTION

With a 1-2 loss to a lesser-fancied Singapore side at home on the 14^th of October 2025, the Indian national football team slumped to fourth and last position in their AFC Asian Cup qualifying group, signalling another low in a torrid decade of results for the team. While some of the blame can be assigned to the sorry performance of the players on the pitch and head coach Khalid Jamil, a far more pressing issue has lingered (more prominently in recent years) for an extended period of time now. There has been much debate as to why a country of 1.4 billion cannot field a competitive 11-member football side, with fingers pointing from the one-track focus on cricket by the Central Government to the lack of grassroots funding for the sport. But where do these problems truly stem from? Most would conclude mismanagement and a lack of governance on the part of the All India Football Federation (“AIFF”). 

In this paper, I first analyse the impact that poor governance has had on Indian football in the last decade, culminating in the short-lived 2022 ban imposed by FIFA. Second, I delve into the newly-devised National Sports Governance Act and the uncertainty it leaves on Indian football governance. Finally, I propose solutions to the legal quandary that arises when arms of the government interfere, for the better or the worse, in footballing matters

PART I : TO PLAY OR NOT TO PLAY?      

Indian football has constantly been plagued by issues off the field, culminating in a series of governance disputes in the early 2020s. AIFF president Praful Patel was involved in the most serious of these, refusing to step down from his post for more than a year after the expiry of his term. On the 18^th of May 2022, the Supreme Court removed Patel in its ruling on a Special Leave Petition. This petition arose out of an order of the Delhi High Court in late 2017 setting aside the AIFF elections held on 21st December, 2016. When the Supreme Court stayed this order in 2017, it created a situation of limbo wherein the AIFF office-holders’ terms were extended for four years beyond their original mandate. In the present order, the Supreme Court responded to a petition that challenged the then structuring and governance of the AIFF, arguing that it was in violation of the National Sports Development Code, 2011 (“Code”).

Supreme Court interference in the regulation of national sporting bodies is nothing new. In Board of Control for Cricket in India v. Cricket Association of Bihar, the Court utilised the doctrine of parens patriae jurisdiction over sports governance, allowing for judicial oversight with respect to sporting bodies despite them being of an ostensibly private nature. However, when the Supreme Court in its May 18^th order instituted a Committee of Administrators (“COA”), this was seen as a further, unreasonable extension of the court’s inherent powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. Although of a temporary nature, this judicial supersession of an elected body raised questions as to whether this was a solution to the governance problems plaguing Indian football. The CoA, which was reconstituted in the form of a three-member body headed by former Supreme Court Justice Anil Dave, former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y Qureshi and former captain of the Indian football team Bhaskar Ganguly, reflected an intriguing institutional design nevertheless. Under paragraph 8 of this order, the CoA was empowered to carry out duties ranging from the day to day governance of the AIFF to the preparation of electoral rolls. There was however, one critical issue – third party interference.      

Article 19(1) of the FIFA Statutes (“Statutes”) prescribes ‘Each member association shall manage its affairs independently and without undue influence from third parties.’ In addition to the same, Article 19(2) of the Statutes prescribes ‘A member association’s bodies shall be either elected or appointed in that association. A member association’s statutes shall provide for a democratic procedure that guarantees the complete independence of the election or appointment.’ The penalty for violation of the same is prescribed in Article 19(3) of the Statutes which states that ‘Any member association’s bodies that have not been elected or appointed in compliance with the provisions of par. 2, even on an interim basis, shall not be recognised by FIFA.’

In pursuance to the same, on the 16^th of August 2022, FIFA issued a statement regarding the AIFF, announcing that that it had suspended the AIFF  ‘with immediate effect due to flagrant violations of the FIFA Statutes’. Citing the grounds of ‘undue interference by a third party’, referring to the Supreme Court’s  appointment of the CoA, FIFA claimed that the AIFF had breached the prohibition under Article 19(1). India was also stripped of its rights to host the Under-17 Women’s World Cup scheduled to be held that year. While the foundations of the ban, chiefly whether the Supreme Court’s appointment of the CoA constituted ‘third party interference’ were widely debated, it was short-lived. The AIFF’s pledge to conduct fresh elections led to this ban and the subsequent sanctions being rescinded in a matter of ten days, with Kalyan Chaubey beating former Indian footballer Baichung Bhutia in the fresh election cycle. However, the threat of suspension continues to linger in the air, with the AIFF barely meeting the FIFA deadline of 30^th October 2025 to ratify its new Supreme Court-devised constitution, which has been drafted in consonance with the new National Sports Governance Act, 2025 (“NSGA”).

PART II : GOVERNING THE GAME

During the period of uncertainty surrounding the adoption of the revised AIFF constitution, the houses of Parliament bore witness to the passing of the NSGA on the 12^th of August 2025. The NSGA envisages a series of sweeping reforms in sporting governance in India. As a successor to the erstwhile Code enacted in 2011, the NSGA retains some of the Code’s original content, designating AIFF as a National Sporting Body under Section 3. Section 5 of the NSGA provides for the establishment of a centralised National Sports Board (“Board”) with overarching powers including but not limited to the granting and suspending of recognition, conducting inquiries into federation affairs, maintaining registers of all sports bodies, issuing governance guidelines and acting as a gatekeeper for government funding to National Sporting Bodies. Crucially, under Section 5, this Board is appointed on the notification of the Central Government.

When the Supreme Court, in an order dated October 15^th, 2025, stated that the governance of the AIFF would be subject to the newly devised NSGA, it opened the proverbial Pandora’s box of governance-related issues that would stem from the same. The first and most obvious being the very fact that the NSGA provides for direct Central government interference in the affairs of the federation, with the Board being granted ad hoc administrative powers under Section 6 of the NSGA that would allow it to insert itself into the day-to-day functioning of the AIFF, or any other National Sporting Body. The more concerning issue however, is the situation of uncertainty created by Section 37 of the NSGA. Under this provision, the NSGA attempts to reconcile its domestic statutory requirements with those of international charters, such as the FIFA Statutes. Section 37(1) posits that the appointed National Sports Bodies would ‘primarily be guided by International Charters and Statutes’. While the natural reaction to the same might have been concerns surrounding third party interference sanctions,  Section 37(2) issues a hasty clarification. This provision empowers the Central Government to issue a clarificatory notification ‘after consultation with the Board and the concerned International Sports Body’.

But what does this really mean? While this acknowledges the primacy of international statutes such as the FIFA Statutes, it reserves authority with the government to ‘clarify’ in the event of a conflict. This leaves the efficacy of this provision almost wholly down to the vision of the Central government. The prioritisation of their domestic vision à la the NSGA over international norms would simply lead to another round of sanctions on the AIFF. However, it is a progressive development that the Supreme Court, in its October 15 order allowed for the exclusion of provisions in the revised AIFF constitution that would require judicial approval for constitutional amendments. This judicial awareness of the clash between such provisions and the FIFA Statutes displays a type of nuanced restraint that cannot be arrived at by a plain implementation of the NSGA to govern Indian football.

PART III: WAYS FORWARD

The enactment of the NSGA places Indian football in a precarious position between domestic statutory obligations and FIFA’s autonomy requirements. With the NSGA now operational, the AIFF must reconcile these governance reforms with the principle of independence enshrined in Article 19 of the FIFA Statutes. In this section, I will suggest a number of measures that would go some distance towards achieving the same if implemented.

The first of these changes must be the incorporation of NSGA governance standards into the AIFF constitution voluntarily. These range from a three term limit and an age cap of seventy years for office holders to enhanced representation for athletes and gender quotas. While the AIFF has been gripped by power struggles, the adoption of such a governance code would prevent interference by third parties in the day to day affairs of the AIFF and is a necessary step towards achieving an Article 19-compatible system of governance. Another way in which such interference can be limited would lie in the implementation of a tripartite consultation mechanism that would require the overarching Board to engage with FIFA before it imposes its coercive powers of suspension and appointment of ad-hoc administrators. This can be achieved through a system wherein the AIFF, Ministry of Sports, the Board and FIFA execute a Memorandum of Understanding wherein mandatory consultation protocols are laid out that precede any intervention on the part of the Board. This is an approach that derives from the approach to managing tensions between domestic law and international federation autonomy as seen in the UEFA-EU structured dialogue. The most important provision to be utilised in any such implementation of the above suggestions regarding the NSGA and autonomy in Indian football is Section 37 of the NSGA.

Through Section 37(1)’s broad acknowledgement of the primacy of ‘International statutes and Charters’, measures such as consultation requirements and structured dispute escalation protocol can be included under the currently under-consultation Draft NSGA (National Sports Board) Rules. By operationalising the balanced intent of Section 37, Indian football can be protected against unilateral government action.

CONCLUSION

In this piece, through an analysis of the NSGA read in consonance with Indian football’s governance troubles, I have attempted to shed light on how the NSGA, while a necessary reform, represents a perilous step in the spate of AIFF-FIFA clashes, and must be implemented carefully. If the statutory requirements of the NSGA can be reconciled with FIFA’s stringent requirements against third-party interference, this could be a monumental step for Indian football off the field.

---

*DISCLAIMER- The opinions and views expressed in this article are that of the Author(s) and not of SLRI- the expressed opinions do not, in any way whatsoever, reflect the views of any third party, including any institution/organisation that the Author(s) is/are currently associated to or was/were associated to in the past. Furthermore, the expressions are solely for informational and educational purposes, and must not be deemed to constitute any kind of advice. The hyperlinks in this blog might take you to webpages operated by third parties- SLRI does not guarantee or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any information, data, opinions, advice, statements, etc. on these webpages.

Preferred Citation: Vidyut Muralidharan, Interpreting Interference – What The National Sports Governance Act Means For Indian Football, Sports Law Review India, available at <https://sportslawreviewindia.blog/2025/11/05/interpreting-interference-what-the-national-sports-governance-act-means-for-indian-football/> Published on 5 November, 2025.