Kazi Salahuddin’s hopes of being re-elected as the South Asian Football Federation president received a blow when Bhutan raised an objection on Tuesday, delaying the election.
Salahuddin was expected to be re-elected unopposed as there were no other serious candidates from the other member countries. At the SAFF Annual General Meeting held in Kathmandu on Tuesday, All Nepal Football Association president Ganesh Thapa nominated Salahuddin and urged the delegates to re-elect him, considering his contributions over the past four years.
Bhutan unexpectedly vetoed the proposal, which forced the SAFF delegates to delay the election for 45 days.
Sources present at the meeting said that Bhutan wanted the SAFF president to be elected on a rotation basis after necessary amendments to the SAFF constitution.
Salahuddin was, however, still confident that he would receive another term, citing all the factors in his favour.
‘It will be a huge pleasure to me if the SAFF countries re-elect me. I am very confident that everybody will assess my four-year tenure, and they knew that what I did in this tenure,’ Salahuddin said after the meeting.
‘I introduced several tournaments, like the SAFF Women’s Championship and SAFF Under-19 Championship, and we decided to organise the SAFF Club Cup Championship,’ he added.
Meanwhile, it was decided that India would host the next edition of the SAFF Championship. According to an agreement between SAFF and its marketing partner, the World Sports Group, India should host every alternate championship to woo local sponsors.
SAFF also wants to introduce the Club Championship in 2014 if it can secure sponsors for the tournament. The schedule for the Club Championship has yet to be confirmed, but it was learned that Bangladesh would host the inaugural edition.
-With New Age input
