Asian football "looks set to scrap its automatic female vice-presidency, held by Australia's Moya Dodd, a move that is bound to lay the region open to accusations of gender discrimination just when it has been making all manner of noises about inclusion and reform," according to Andrew Warshaw of INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL. Delegates attending the Asian Football Confederation's extraordinary congress next month "will be asked to approve an amendment abolishing the titular position in order to accommodate a fifth zone within its vast and complicated east-west structure." The proposed change recommends that Dodd's title, "which would have been up for re-election at the full AFC congress in April, is instead scrapped." She "can still stay on as a routine AFC exco member, if elected, but many will take the view that her role, on paper at least, will be downgraded." The situation "has been created by the controversial decision," backed by AFC President Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, to separate central and south Asia into two separate zones "even though they only have 13 nations between them." Like other zones, the two new ones "will each be allocated a VP post as well as a female member." While this "technically increases the total number of women on the AFC exco from four to five, sceptics will view it as a fig leaf designed to offset criticism about abolishing the far more prestigious confederation VP position occupied by Dodd" (INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 12/8).
