The Indian Football Association (Bengali: ভারতীয় ফুটবল এসোসিয়েশন), is the organization that administers association football in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the oldest Football Association in India and was founded in 1893. Amongst the founders was former England international Elphinstone Jackson. Also, in 1896, Mahatma Gandhi, then a young lawyer in South Africa, was among a group of Indian men who helped found the Transvaal Indian Football Association. Peter Alegi, a professor of African history at Michigan State University, considers it “most likely the first organized football group on the continent that was not run by whites”.
Contrary to the name, the association does not administer the game in India, a task which falls to the All India Football Federation (AIFF). However before the formation of the AIFF the IFA was in de facto control of football in India by virtue of its administration by Englishmen as well as its affiliation to the Football Association of England. The IFA was instrumental in creating the AIFF to govern football on a national basis.
Clubs from outside West Bengal complained about the lack of neutrality in the affairs of the IFA. This disillusionment of clubs and patrons led to the formation of associations like the Western Indian Football Association which preferred to be governed by themselves rather than by the IFA. Later, the IFA helped form the AIFF.
The IFA organizes tournaments like the Calcutta Football League and the IFA Shield
Famous quotes containing the words indian, football and/or association:
“Having resumed our seats in the canoe, I felt the Indian wiping my back, which he had accidently spat upon. He said it was a sign that I was going to be married.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“In this great association we know no North, no South, no East, no West. This has been our pride for all these years. We have no political party. We never have inquired what anybody’s religion is. All we ever have asked is simply, “Do you believe in perfect equality for women?” This is the one article in our creed.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)