AIFF suspends Sharma, state FAs call for independent probe

Panaji: The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has suspended its senior executive committee member Deepak Sharma “until further notice”, following his arrest in the alleged physical assault of two women footballers of Khad FC.

The AIFF had initially directed Sharma to step back and refrain from participating in all football-related activities, until the conclusion of a three-member committee's report. The panel has now been dissolved and the case referred to the disciplinary committee.

“When the committee was appointed, there was no police case. Now, we do not need an ad hoc committee and instead we can refer everything to the disciplinary committee which is independent and has all external officials as members,” said a senior official.

Late on Monday, Sharma appeared before state association representatives during an online meeting and maintained that the police case was a conspiracy to defame him. “I have been in football for such a long time, and such allegations have never been made against me. This is a conspiracy. I have two daughters and cannot think of doing anything like this,” he told the members.

Sharma’s presence at the state associations’ meeting where they were discussing the physical assault of two women footballers in Goa angered some members. At least two of them made their displeasure known before the Himachal Pradesh official was asked to leave.

AIFF officials said Sharma was asked to speak for just five minutes. “He is only charged, and we had to hear from him. He was not allowed to attend the executive committee meeting,” said the official.


AIFF placed Sharma under suspension on Tuesday.

“The AIFF is determined to promote women's football in a safe and enabling environment and will take all necessary steps to ensure this,” AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey said after the executive committee meeting on Tuesday. “The incident in Goa during IWL 2 should not be amplified to undermine the AIFF’s developmental efforts in women’s football. The case has now been referred to the disciplinary committee and will be taken up emergently.”

Sharma was arrested by Goa police on Saturday for physically assaulting two women footballers of Khad, a Himachal Pradesh-based team that he himself owns. According to sources, for IWL 2, 13 of the players were from Himachal Pradesh, while the rest came from the Lovely Professional University in Amritsar and an academy from Pune.

Significantly, the participation fee of Rs 50,000 was paid by another Himachal-registered club. Himachal also didn’t have the HWL Senior Division Women’s Championship for 2023 and instead Khad, runnersup in 2022, were considered.

The team was nominated by Himachal Pradesh FA which has Sharma as the secretary.

“What Sharma has done (in Goa) is a serious offence and strict action should be taken,” said a senior member who attended the meeting. “State association representatives made it clear that nobody associated with the AIFF should investigate the case.”

AIFF’s previous three-member inquiry committee included two executive committee members, Pinky Bompal Magar and Vijay Bali, besides the federation’s safety and child safeguarding officer, Rita Jairath.