Sunil Chhetri wins 2017 AIFF player of the year award

Mumbai, July 22: Inspirational captain Sunil Chhetri was on Sunday named as the 2017 All India Football Federation (AIFF) Player of the Year by the national body here. Chhetri recently became the second Indian footballer to play 100 international games after Baichung Bhutia.

Chhetri is a star striker for both India and Bengaluru FC. While Chhetri was declared the 2017 AIFF Player of the Year in the men's category, Kamala Devi was adjudged the 2017 AIFF woman Player of the Year.

Young Anirudh Thapa, who had impressed everyone with his performance in the four-nation Intercontinental Cup which India won, was declared as the 2017 Emerging Player of the Year. E Panthoi was named as the 2017 woman Emerging Player of the Year, an AIFF statement said.

Sunil Chhetri wins the 2017 AIFF Player of the Year award whereas Anirudh Thapa bags the AIFF Emerging player of the year award 🔥#AIFF2017Awards pic.twitter.com/CzTShnyH9u

— Indian Football Team-For World Cup (@IFTWC) July 22, 2018

Meanwhile, Praful Patel, President, All India Football Federation Chaired AIFF’s Executive Committee Meeting held in Mumbai on Sunday (July 22). Besides, AIFF General Secretary Kushal Das; Vice Presidents Subrata Dutta, Larsing Ming, KMI Mather, Manavendra Singh, Treasurer ZA Thakur, all other members except AR Khaleel, Sanjay Behera, Deepak Kumar, Lalnghinglova Hmar and Sara Pilot, attended the meeting.

The Committee strongly condemned Indian Olympic Committee’s decision to debar Football teams from participating in the forthcoming Asian Games scheduled to be held in Jakarta.
The Committee also unanimously ratified the 2018-19 Club licensing regulations.

Meanwhile, in a further effort to curb age-fraud, the TW3 test, which has been accepted by the Supreme Court as an age verification test as well used extensively used by the BCCI, has been implemented by the Committee for all age-group competitions including Club competitions, state tournaments and even National Team competitions. The costs for the tests would be borne by the respective Clubs and State Associations.

Abiding by FIFA regulations, the Committee ratified the use of 5 substitutions in age-group competitions along with an extra substitute if the match is stretched to extra-time.

The Committee also recommended that a standard draft agreement be circulated to the Clubs which will include all clauses which need to be included as per FIFA regulations. However, Clubs would be allowed to use certain variable clauses as an annexure. This will be implemented from the 2019-20 season.

The full list of the 2017 Awards are as follows:

AIFF Award for Best Grassroots Development Programme: Kerala FA

AIFF Award for long-time contribution to Indian Football: Hero Motocorp

AIFF Award for Best Assistant Referee: Sumanta Datta (Assam)

AIFF Award for Best Referee: CR Srikrishna

AIFF Emerging Woman Footballer of the Year: E Panthoi

AIFF Emerging Player of the Year: Anirudh Thapa

AIFF Woman Footballer of the Year: Kamala Devi

AIFF Player of the Year: Sunil Chhetri

(Source: AIFF & PTI)