Bhutia quits AIFF technical committee, claims Federation “bypassed” panel to appoint Marquez as India coach

Bhutia said a special committee under AIFF vice president N. A. Haris was dealing with the matter of finding a successor to Stimac, and he was completely against it.

File photo: Bhutia said that it was the job of the technical committee to shortlist the candidates who have applied and recommend the suitable person to become coach. But this time, there was not even a single technical committee meeting to appoint successor of Stimac. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri/The Hindu

Former India captain Bhaichung Bhutia has decided to quit the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF’s) technical committee in protest against the arbitrary functioning of the federation.

“A committee was formed by AIFF that is supposed to advise on technical matters. Selecting a coach is an important part of the functioning of the technical committee.

Strangely, the technical committee was bypassed when the new coach (Manolo Marquez) was appointed this time,” Bhutia told Sportstar while announcing his decision to resign from the technical committee.

RELATED: Manolo Marquez succeeds Igor Stimac as head coach of Indian football men’s team

“A separate committee was formed and the AIFF president (Kalyan Chaubey) just came to the meeting and announced one name to which the executive committee members gave their consent. This is a completely wrong process and I do not see any reason for staying in the technical committee,” he added.

“In the past, I had been the chairman of the technical committee and we had appointed Stephen Constantine as the national (men’s team) coach. The AIFF technical committee does the essential work and the executive committee ratifies the recommendations to finalise the appointment of the coach,” he said.

“Even the present chairman of the technical committee I.M. Vijayan was not present in the meeting and the AIFF president came and announced that there is not enough budget for the National coach and we will appoint this person who is available in the budget. That was the selection process which is unacceptable,” Bhutia said.

The former captain, however, will continue to remain a part of the AIFF executive committee.

Bhutia also came down heavily on Chaubey and said that the latter should “himself quit” from the post of the president accepting the fact that he tried to bribe a person while trying to garner political favour.

“Everyone heard that he (Chaubey) tried to bribe someone (Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh) to gain political favours. This is something against the ethics and FIFA norms. He should himself resign taking responsibility for the wrongdoing,” he said.

Bhutia raised the issue in the AIFF executive committee meeting but it was not discussed as the matter was not a part of the agenda.