FIFA has suspended the All India Football Federation (AIFF) with immediate effect owing to undue third-party interference in AIFF which is a violation of FIFA's statutes.
The FIFA statutes state, "Recourse to ordinary courts of law is prohibited unless specifically provided for in the FIFA regulations. Recourse to ordinary courts of law for all types of provisional measures is also prohibited.
"The associations shall insert a clause in their statutes or regulations, stipulating that it is prohibited to take disputes in the association or disputes affecting leagues, members of leagues, clubs, members of clubs, players, officials and other association officials to ordinary courts of law, unless the FIFA regulations or binding legal provisions specifically provide for or stipulate recourse to ordinary courts of law.
"Instead of recourse to ordinary courts of law, provision shall be made for arbitration."
The Supreme Court of India had recently asked long-serving AIFF President Praful Patel to step down and appointed a Committee of Administrators (CoA) to take over the affairs of the Indian FA. However, after finding the resulting developments to have violated the aforementioned FIFA statute, the governing body of world football decided to ban the AIFF.
This is not the first time FIFA has imposed a similar ban on its member associations. Let’s take a look at some instances when FIFA banned countries owing to third-party interference.
