The President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino is likely to make the acquaintance of PM Narendra Modi ahead of the upcoming FIFA Women's U-17 World Cup in India. The tournament is scheduled to take place from October 11-30 and in accordance with the procedure, the FIFA president is likely to fly to India and meet with the Indian prime minister. The gathering might also lead to discussing plans for the future of Indian football and fostering its growth.
“The members were informed about the possibility of the FIFA president meeting honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the way forward for Indian football. They would be making some announcements which would be path-breaking,” said Shaji Prabhakaran, AIFF secretary general.
The meeting of the FIFA president is expected to come to pass during the Women's U-17 World Cup. The incumbent president of the AIFF, Kalyan Chaubey and Prabhakaran, met the FIFA president for the first time in Doha on September 9.
Kalyan Chaubey is the newly elected AIFF president after a landslide victory of 33-1 votes in his favour against the former Indian football skipper Bhaichung Bhutia resulting in the ouster of his predecessor Praful Patel. This comes after Indian football was banned for unfair third-party influence which breaches FIFA’s code of conduct.
Modi and Infantino bumped into each other for the first time at the G20 summit in Argentina where PM Modi was welcomed with an exclusive shirt that had pm’s last name on the back of the shirt with G20 aligned to it. “Impossible to come to Argentina and not think about football. Argentinian players are tremendously popular in India. Today, received this jersey from @FIFAcom President Gianni Infantino. I thank him for the kind gesture,” Modi tweeted on December 1, 2018.
