Controversy-ridden AIFF president gets life threat

All India Football Federation (AIFF) lodged a complaint with Delhi police alleging that president Kalyan Chaubey received an anonymous call issuing threats to his life and property.

AIFF Secretary General Anilkumar Prabhakaran lodged the police complaint for "registration of FIR against unknown miscreants" at the Dwarka Police Station on Thursday. According to the complaint, the office of AIFF received a call on September 10 between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm, which was picked by Kritika Rattan, the office executive of the federation.

The unidentified individual immediately began issuing threats to the AIFF president, the complaint stated.

The FIR also mentioned that the unidentified individual stated that Chaubey should be careful of his decisions and other actions. The individual also issued "threats to the life and property of not only Chaubey but also his family."

The unknown caller said that they are "aware of the whereabouts of the family of Chaubey and that they live in Kolkata," it said.

Rattan was then told by the caller to inform the senior management of the AIFF and Chaubey of these warnings. She tried to ascertain the identity of the caller, enquiring about his name, but the unamed individual hung up the phone and disconnected the call, the complaint said.

Notably, the year 2024 has not been the smoothest of rides for the AIFF president.

In March, AIFF former Head of Legal, Nilanjan Bhattacharjee, levied corruption allegations against Chaubey, alleging that Chaubey made attempts to "syphon off money from the federation's exchequer" and used the AIFF fund for "personal expenses."

However, Chaubey offered clarification over the allegations made against him in a letter to the top office bearers of the member associations and the Executive Committee members.

The AFC had later asked the AIFF for a full case file on the allegations against Chaubey.

He denied allegations of financial wrongdoings on various accounts, including sharing of legal retainership fees, usage of AIFF credit cards to purchase personal items, threatening Bhattacharjee's faith, interference with judicial bodies to favour clubs, and conducting personal trips at AIFF's expense.

Chaubey also addressed the allegations raised on the usage of dummy cameras by the production teams by stating that he has asked the AIFF Acting Secretary-General to request the match details of the games where the dummy cameras were allegedly in use.

Kalyan Chaubey was elected as AIFF president in September 2022.