'Priority will be improvement of quality of football,' says AIFF's new secretary general Anilkumar

New Delhi, Aug 19 (IANS) The newly appointed secretary general of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) Anilkumar Prabhakaran vows to take 'Indian football to new level' as he took charge, here on Monday.

Anilkumar said that Indian football is lacking in quality and needs to be improved. When the quality improves, the spectator turnout and viewership will improve, and the money will come to all areas of football.

"So, the priority will be the improvement of the quality of football. I don't know how long we will take to make it at that level. But still we are starting with the hope that we can do something better. We will not give up until we succeed. And along with you, all Indian football fans, we will continue to work across India with those who love football, who support Indian football," Anilkumar said to aiff.com

Anilkumar was welcomed by the AIFF treasurer Kipa Ajay, on behalf of the AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey, vice president NA Haris, the executive committee members and the state associations. Present on the occasion was the AIFF deputy secretary general M Satyanarayan.

"I know that this is a very big responsibility. I have been working with the Kerala Football Association for quite long and understand the various departments. Definitely, we will work together as a team along with the member associations and other stakeholders of Indian football to take the game ahead in the coming days,” he added.

The newly-appointed secretary general said that though Indian football has been growing since many years, it may not have reached the expected level if one looks at the FIFA rankings.

"So, we have a huge responsibility to improve that ranking. Our focus will be to work together with all the stakeholders to improve the quality of Indian football and make it more acceptable at the international level. With the executive committee's direction, and along with our team at the AIFF headquarters, we will do better things to improve the system,” he concluded.