Eyeing U-17 World Cup, India give FIFA emblem legal protection

The international football federation, FIFA, has become the second sports body, after the International Olympic Committee, to get legal protection for its emblem in India. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Sep 20, 2013, 24:21:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The international football federation, FIFA, has become the second sports body, after the International Olympic Committee, to get legal protection for its emblem in India.

FIFA’s emblem has been listed under the Emblem and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act of 1950, giving it protection equivalent to the national emblem --- four lions standing back to back atop the Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath.

“Bringing the FIFA emblem under the ambit of the law was required for acceptance of India’s bid for the youth (U-17) football world cup,” explained a senior government official.

India is pitted against South Africa, Ireland and Uzbekistan for the event to be held in 2017.

The Union Cabinet had in June approved the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) bid after FIFA rejected India’s initial bid in the absence of government guarantees. One of the conditions for accepting the bid was the protection of FIFA’s emblem from misuse.

The Consumer Affairs ministry this week notified the insertion of FIFA’s emblem in the schedule of the law listing organisations whose emblems cannot be used for professional and commercial purpose without permission.

Misuse of the emblem will attract a fine of Rs 500.

Interestingly, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is not covered under the emblem law.

The law also does not protect any domestic sports federation, including BCCI.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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