The Centre on Tuesday sought Supreme Court’s urgent hearing in Football federation matter after FIFA suspended All India Football Federation (AIFF) India.

The FIFA on Tuesday announced that it has decided to suspend the All India Football Federation (AIFF) with immediate effect.

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According to an official statement, the decision was made due to “undue influence from third parties, which constitutes a severe violation of the FIFA statutes.”

FIFA also mentioned that the suspension affects India’s hosting rights for FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022, scheduled in October, which will not happen as planned.

The AIFF will not be able to play any international games until the ban is removed.

As per reports, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.

Mehta submitted that some development has taken place in the matter related to AIFF and requested the court to hear the matter on Wednesday.

The bench told Mehta that the case is listed as first item on Wednesday.

“Mehta did not mention the suspension of AIFF specifically before the court, but submitted that he will circulate the FIFA press release, which is already in public domain, so that the bench gets an idea about the development,” stated the reports.

As per the official media release, issued by FIFA, it states, “The Bureau of the FIFA Council has unanimously decided to suspend the All India Football Federation (AIFF) with immediate effect due to undue influence from third parties, which constitutes a serious violation of the FIFA Statutes.”

It further stated that the suspension will be lifted once an order to set up a committee of administrators to assume the powers of the AIFF Executive Committee has been repealed.

On August 3, the apex court had passed directions for conducting elections for the AIFF executive committee ahead of the hosting of the U-17 women’s world cup by India.

After this order, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) moved a contempt petition seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against former AIFF president Praful Patel and representatives of 7 state associations accusing them of indirectly stalling the court ordered elections to the AIFF.

(With inputs from IANS)