AIFF trying to mislead people, says ex-legal head on Stimac contract row

New Delhi: The dispute between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and the recently sacked men’s team head coach, Croatian World Cupper Igor Stimac, seems to be a never-ending saga.

While Stimac has levelled several allegations of non-cooperation by the AIFF, including the ‘unlawful’ termination of his contract, the AIFF, on its part, has vehemently denied the charges in an official statement issued by it.

The Federation, while terminating the contract, offered three-month salary as compensation, while Stimac demanded full salary till January 2026, as per the redrafted contract signed on October 5, 2023, as there is no ‘severance clause’ in his last agreement.

Stimac even threatened to go to the FIFA Tribunal if the full compensation is not paid.

As far as the severance part of the contract is concerned, the Federation, in its statement, has said that in the first contract, which was signed in 2019, this clause was there, but in the agreement that was signed in 2023, this clause was missing.

However, the AIFF, in its statement, preferred to put the blame, without naming them, on former Secretary General Shaji Prabhakaran, and Nilanjan Bhattacharya, who was ousted from his post as legal head in March this year, days after levelling allegations of financial irregularities against the Federation.

“The current leadership of the AIFF took office in September 2022, when Stimac had already been in the position for over three years. When his contract came up for renewal in October 2023, the core committee of the AIFF, under the chairmanship of Vice President N.A. Haris, met in advance and proposed to the AIFF that Stimac could be offered a two-year contract with a monthly salary of $30,000 from January 2024, and to instruct the legal team to finalise the contract ‘with a termination clause favourable to AIFF’.

“The then Secretary General and AIFF legal consultant negotiated and finalised and the then Secretary General signed the contract with Stimac. The executed contract provides for a salary raise to $30,000 per month from February 2024 to January 2025 (as approved by the core committee), and $40,000 per month from February 2025 to January 2026 (without core committee approval for the said amount).

“The specific instructions regarding inserting termination clauses favourable to AIFF were also not followed before executing the contract. However, certain clauses for termination for cause were retained in the contract,” the statement said.

When IANS contacted Nilanjan Bhattacharya, who drafted the contract signed in October 2023, he said the Federation is trying to mislead the people to divert the attention from the ‘main issue’.

“The agreement has a specific clause which allows the AIFF to terminate the coach with a notice period. Further, the fact that they have terminated Stimac under the same agreement shows that they have used an existing provision in the arrangement to do so.

“As far as finalising the agreement is concerned, no agreement has ever been decided without the approval of the AIFF President (Kalyan Chaubey). Once the new contract (October 2023) was drafted and forwarded to the then Secretary General, the same was forwarded to all concerned, including the President, by him for their consideration, and the agreement was executed only after the approval from all quarters," added Bhattacharya.

“This is just an attempt to divert the attention from the many issues which the outgoing coach highlighted.”

IANS also tried to contact the former Secretary General Shaji Prabhakaran, who did not take the call. The whatsapp messages sent to him remained unanswered.