Bhaichung Bhutia: Kalyan Chaubey beats Bhaichung Bhutia, AIFF gets first player president

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) on Friday elected a former player as the first president in its 85-year history, with Kalyan Choubey defeating the legendary Bhaichung Bhutia in the top post here. The 45-year-old Choubey, a former Mohun Bagan and East Bengal goalkeeper, registered a 33-1 win, the result expected as former captain Bhutia did not have many supporters in the 34-member electoral roll drawn from the state association. Representative.

The ‘Sikkimis sniper’, who is also 45 years old, could not get his state union representative as a mover or seconder to file his nomination papers.

Choubey, a BJP leader who lost the last parliamentary election for West Bengal’s Krishnanagar seat, never played for India’s senior team, although he was in the team on a few occasions.

However, he played for India in age-group international tournaments. He was also a former goalkeeper in both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal.

In fact, Bhutia and Choubey were once teammates in East Bengal.

Karnataka Football Association president NA Haris, a sitting Congress MLA, won the election for the vice-president’s post by defeating Manvendra Singh of Rajasthan FA.

Kippa Ajay of Arunachal Pradesh defeated Gopalkrishna Kosaraju of Andhra Pradesh for the post of Treasurer.

Kosarju and Manvendra proposed and supported Bhutia.

All the 14 candidates who filed nominations for the posts of Executive Committee members were elected unopposed.

Originally published at Pen 18