Kalyan Choubey, president of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), on Friday accused Bichung Bhutia of running commercial academies for his vested interests. The former captain of the national team, however, has described these allegations as baseless.
Chaubey’s allegation was in response to the recent AFC Asian Cup qualifying round match to Hong Kong after India’s shocking defeat from Bhutia to resign from the post of AIFF chief. Bhutia had said that Choubey has destroyed Indian football. When Chaubey was asked about Bhutia’s comments, he said that he runs a commercial football school in his name. He is in 20 different cities. In this football school, players pay from 1000 to one lakh rupees. They are taken from one thousand to 10000 rupees a month.
Chaubey was referring to Baichung Bhutia Football School, which has many academies across the country. The AIFF president said that it is completely vested selfishness is completely commercial. They are taking unfair advantage by playing with the feelings of the families, the feelings of the people. People think that the person has reached the highest level of Indian football and if I can be a part of his academy then I can also make my life as a football player.
At the same time, Bhutia dismissed Choubey’s allegation and said that Choubey has no idea about how the academy is run. He has said that he has opened his football school with his hard earned money. Bhutia told PTI from Sikkim that, Choubey is the person who lacks information. He is making baseless allegations. He does not know anything about the Football Academy. I opened football schools 14 years ago with my hard earned money. No financial assistance was received from states, centers and corporates.
He also said that in the last two years, only a few sponsors have come to help the children. More than 6000 children play every day in my schools across the country. Even AIFF cannot do this. He said that he is talking about fees, but no one is helping me financially. To run the academy, I have to charge fees. But I do not know from where he is talking about the fees of Rs 10000 per month per month, we do not charge so much.
