AIFF Polls: Player power, puppets or battle for relevance? | Football News – Times of India

NEW DELHI : That constant call to include sportspersons in sports administration should turn a corner on Friday when Indian football, of all places, will see two former players go head to head for the top post. But whether Kalyan Chaubey becomes president or if Bhaichung Bhutia manages to, is it really player power breathing new life into a moribund football administration? Or that the puppet master can only be spoken of in hushed tones?
Chaubey, a goalkeeper from the 1990s Tata Football Academy stable, always spoke of “relevance” outside of the football field. Despite an impressive array of ‘clubs played’, Chaubey, privately , would display that restlessness which standing between the posts evidently couldn’t quell.
“As a player in India, you soon need to start thinking beyond football,” he’d say, as Indian sport entered the televised 2000s.
As he found himself eventually relegated to the bench from first goalkeeper as his 15-year-old professional career progressed, Chaubey looked beyond. Clearly, the idea of coaching was not what would satiate him. He even considered modelling and acting in Bangla soaps at one time. He had the presence of mind to protect his face when roughed up by a rogue club-owner in Goa when the player rightfully dared to ask for dues owed to him, because “even if your career went nowhere, at least the face remained intact. it would serve me later.”
Vernacular TV commentary would show life on the sideline as slicker, less sweaty, mic in hand, bespoke suit replacing the keeper’s jersey. In 2014, he would find his true calling when the BJP would come head-hunting in their mission for Bengal.
Today (Thursday), on the eve the AIFF elections, as favourite, Chaubey’s search for relevance is coming full circle. But how much of this aspiration is being fulfilled by forces beyond his domain?

The member states who had rallied to help oust Praful Patel, and forced the call for fresh elections, abandoned their own ambition for office to en masse support Chaubey’s last-minute candidature.
“We support the government in power, it shouldn’t necessarily be seen as supporting the party in power,” a member had said, on how supporting the ‘government’ candidate has its benefits, funds for cash-strapped state associations, but he was also making implicit instructions that may have come their way to do so.
Chaubey’s adversary then, a maidan rival, former captain of India, first Indian to play 100 international matches, should be hailed for the courage to stand up to the might of Chaubey’s backers. But if only this was the case. It is usually automatically assumed that Bhutia should be a shoo-in for the job, even understood to already be the better administrator: “But, does Kalyan have any experience?”
During his storied career, Bhutia may have never seemed to have any of those spells of uncertainty that assailed Chaubey — even perhaps during his largely Unremarkable, lonely stay at Bury FC. Yet, today as it stands, it is Bhutia who desperately searching for any sort of relevance in this battle for administrative supremacy.
As the Chaubey bandwagon gained all-access steam, Bhutia found himself stranded. He found last-minute backers in the very forces that the member states had sought to oust. Undeterred, Bhutia presented a brave and cheery front, tirelessly pitching himself to those who would privately admit to keeping him at arm’s length.
While it looked futile, the effort and clamour was admirable. Still, one had to ask, mobbed as he was by excited Air Force personnel at the Subroto Cup announcement on Thursday: “So what happens from the day after tomorrow, Bhaichung?”
“What happens?” he laughed. “If it happens, it happens, if it doesn’t, I’ll always love Indian football.”