The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Special Mission Team (SMT) led by AFC Research and Support Services Head Steve Tae H. Kim met at the All India Football Federation Headquarters in Dwarka on Monday, August 25.

Besides Kim, the other Members are Ong Chong Heng and Mahajan Vasudevan. The Head of Delegation is Dato’ Windsor John, AFC Deputy General Secretary. AIFF General Secretary Kushal Das, I-League CEO Sunando Dhar, and Club Licensing Manager Ms. Roma Khanna were also present in the meeting.

“The first objective of the meeting was to explain about the new change with the decision method for ACL (AFC Champions League) participation from the year 2015 and 2016,” AFC’s Steve told AIFF Media.

“Now we solely rely on AFC MA (Member Association) ranking to decide slot numbers.”

Member Association rankings are done considering 70 percent of the National Team’s performance in the last four years, which is basically the FIFA Rankings, and 30 percent of the performance in AFC competitions of all clubs combined for the respective MA in question.

“This means that performances of all the clubs over a period of four years will be taken into account when a club is to be judged for participating in AFC competitions,” explained Steve.

“Until last year we used the points system to decide slot numbers.”

“In the meeting we also discussed the ACL criteria comprising of individual interview for finances, club licensing, legal, sports integrity and the professional league (I-League).”

The SMT will be travelling to I-League outfits Salgaocar FC, Bengaluru FC, Sporting Clube de Goa, Dempo SC and East Bengal for inspection.

The workshop for I-League clubs is scheduled to take place on August 29 at the AIFF Football House in Dwarka.

(Report & Picture courtesy AIFF Media)