Kushal Das appointed new AIFF General Secretary

The AIFF Executive Committee met yesterday in Mumbai to finalise the naming of the new General Secretary of the federation and discuss other important pending issues. And all executive committee members attended the meeting which was chaired by the AIFF president Praful Patel.

The 50 year old Kushal Das has been appointed as the new General Secretary and he will start his work on October 15 at Football House in Dwarka, New Delhi. For a transitional period the incumbent Alberto Colaco will remain with the federation to proper hand over everything to the new Secretary.

Kushal Das until recently was the Chief Financial Officer of the International Cricket Council (cricket's global governing body). Before that he was for 12 years with IMG in India and South Korea. Prior to that he was with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Vegepro Foods (GlaxoSmithKline) and Bharat Shell.

"The executive committee today approved the candidature of Das and welcomed the decison with a hope to bring in professionalism in the federation for the betterment of Indian football," a top AIFF official told PTI on condition of anonymity yesterday.

As I have stated in the past, the task on hand for the new General Secretary is multiple as he would have to work to develop Indian football on different fronts - professional & amateur, seniors & juniors, men's & women's. A task to take our football forward and continue to professionalize the running of the federation, which will also have to grow further. Surely not an easy task for Kushal. I can only wish him all the best! And he surely has my support...

In another important development the AIFF has formed a three member committee to look into the matter of the AIFF'S media and marketing rights. The federation wants to end its relationship with the Zee Group, while entering into a new one with IMG-Reliance. The task has now been given to Subrata Dutta, Larsing Ming and Hardev Jadeja to work out something with the two parties, so that the federation can move on. The main worry is that there could be little to no coverage of the I-League when it starts on November 26.