Kushal Das joins AIFF on Monday

In the end it took a little longer, but now Kushal Das has formally been appointed as the new General Secretary of our national football federation. Kushal will officially join the All India Football Federation tomorrow on Monday, November 1 and run the operations of the federation from now on at Football House in Dwarka, New Delhi. Kushal Das replaces Alberto Colaco, who had been the AIFF General Secretary for the last 10 years.

The first major task for the new General Secretary will be sorting out the TV and marketing deal along with the special committee formed by the executive committee consisting of Subrata Dutta, Larsing Ming and Hardev Jadeja, and the AIFF president Praful Patel. The I-League will kick-off in less then four weeks and at the moment nothing is sure on who will own the TV & marketing rights then, who will be showing the matches on television and who are the league's sponsors.

Kushal Das until recently was the Chief Financial Officer of the International Cricket Council (cricket's global governing body) at their headquarters in Dubai. 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.

As I have stated in the past and can only repeat again, 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. And it is surely not an easy task for Kushal. I wish him all the best! And he surely has my full support...