Virat Kohli's brand endorsement 'double cross' embarrasses AIFF, Praful Patel lashes out in tweet
VIRAT KOHLI'S ENGAGEMENT with an unrecognised futsal league seems to have landed him in a tiff with the AIFF.
Virat Kohli, who is a co-owner of FC Goa which plays in a private tournament not recognised by FIFA -- the Indian Super League -- but affiliated with AIFF through their commercial partners IMG-Reliance, has agreed to be the brand ambassador of yet another privately-owned franchise tournament trying to catch eyeballs in India, called Premier Futsal. The cricketer has starred in a television commercial for this league, which tries to sell itself by patronisingly calling futsal "the T20 of football."
Futsal -- a five-a-side version of football played mostly indoors is also governed by FIFA. But there is a parallel governing body for futsal -- The Asociación Mundial de Futsal (AMF) -- and Premier Futsal is associated with their Indian branch called the Futsal Association of India. But AMF and FIFA are constantly at loggerheads and several footballing countries continue boycotting the parallel body.
And that is why Kohli's association with Premier Futsal makes AIFF look bad. And a recent tweet by the Indian FA's president, Praful Patel, has made their displeasure known.
Any brand Ambassador of an ISL franchise cannot do the same for a league not recognised by #AIFF or #FIFA
— Praful Patel (@praful_patel) June 18, 2016
In a recent statement sent out to the media, AIFF General Secretary Kushal Das has made it clear that Premier Futsal is not endorsed or recognized by AIFF. And soon after the news of the upcoming tournament broke, AIFF formed its own committee to govern futsal.
The indications are that AIFF and IMG-Reliance want to start their own futsal league. But Virat Kohli's brand endorsement 'double cross' has undoubtedly embarrassed them at a time when they have already come under fire from FIFA for letting the other private tournament, ISL, run in parallel with the real top division I-League. And this tweet from Praful Patel is a reaction to the same.
Although it's unclear how this will affect Kohli's relationship with FC Goa or ISL, the matter is undoubtedly taking us down a road we have been in before with the Zee-backed ICL and BCCI.
