Background
Peter Velappan was born in 1935.
Peter Velappan was born in 1935.
He studied at the University of Birmingham, Loughborough College in the United Kingdom and McGill University in Canada.
From 1963 to 1980, he was the Assistant Secretary of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), during which he introduced professionalism in the country. In 1972, as Team Manager and Coach, he guided the national team to qualification for the 1972 Olympics in Munich. In 1978, Velappan was appointed General Secretary of the AFC. He served under three AFC presidents: Malaysians Hamzah Abu Samah (1978–1994), Sultan Ahmad Shah (1994–2002) and Mohamed bin Hammam from Qatar (2002–2007).
Velappan retired in 2007.
Velappan remains as Project Director of Vision Asia, a program devoted to popularizing football at the grassroots level in Asia and raising the standards of performance to compete with the rest of the world. Velappan is known for his outspoken views on the development of Asian football.
Velappan caused a minor controversy during the 2004 AFC Asian Cup when he accused Chinese fans in the Workers Stadium in Beijing of jeering at Very Important Person guests during the opening ceremony. He chided them as "not polite" and expressed doubts over Beijing"s ability to host the Olympics in 2008.
When it later emerged that a technical glitch involving the stadium"s big screen had mistakenly created the impression that fans were booing at the guests, he apologized.
Velappan is known for his outspoken views on the development of Asian football. He famously criticized Asian football players for their lack of fitness in 2001.
He also had a difficult working relationship with AFC President Mohamed bin Hammam towards the end of his tenure as general secretary, after the latter suggested moving the AFC headquarters away from Kuala Lumpur. He campaigned against Bin Hammam during the election for AFC"s seat on the Fédération internationale de football association Executive Committee in 2009, backing Shaikh Salman Bin Ibrahim First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Khalifa from Bahrain.
Bin Hammam barely won the election. Velappan also publicly slammed Bin Hammam"s candidacy during the 2011 Fédération internationale de football association presidential election, citing Bin Hammam"s "undemocratic" approach.