New Delhi: The presence of two alleged overage players didn’t make any difference to the outcome of the final of sub-junior boys national championship for the BC Roy Trophy.
They remained unused substitutes but were named in Delhi’s team sheet against Bengal for the final after obtaining tacit approval from the All India Football Federation following an emergent executive committee meeting on Wednesday.
Bengal protested off the pitch and then showed their supremacy on it to win the final 3-0, Shagnik Kundu making their record-extending 14th title memorable with a hat-trick (12′, 78′ and 90+4′) at Amritsar’s Sri Guru Hargobind Sahib Football Stadium.
After AIFF’s executive committee member and chairman of competitions committee Vijay Bali resigned to protest the approval of those two players who had failed the mandatory age-verification TW3 test, to participate in Delhi’s 4-2 semi-final win over Punjab, AIFF swiftly called the meeting to seek approval for their participation in Thursday’s final.
In a one-sided meeting in the absence of Bali, AIFF revealed that the players were permitted after passing in re-tests, one of them clearing the TW3 test in the second attempt while the other was allowed on the basis of a medical report of Sports Science Division of Sports Authority of India at Indira Gandhi Stadium in New Delhi.
‘Strongest objection’
Several members questioned such “gross violation of the tournament’s eligibility norms,” as Bengal governing body the Indian Football Association’s secretary Anirban Dutta pointed out in a letter to AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey on Thursday.
“All other participating states were strictly required to ensure TW3 clearance for every player before participation as per the Article 5.2.1.5 of the Competition Regulations…
“We have further come to know that the rules were changed overnight following a protest from the Punjab team against Delhi for fielding such illegal players, and the subsequent resignation of the Chairman of the Competitions Committee,” he wrote.
Instead of taking corrective steps and appropriate disciplinary action, AIFF deemed the two boys, hailing from influential families, eligible to play after disffusing all objections in the meeting.
IFA lodged a strong objection against an “arbitrary and reactionary decision that completely undermines the integrity and credibility of the tournament. Changing eligibility criteria midway through the competition is unprecedented, unethical, and unacceptable.”
“There cannot be two separate sets of rules within the same national championship, nor can age-verification and participating players eligibility standards be selectively relaxed for certain teams. These actions are highly discriminatory, demoralizing for compliant teams, and deeply damaging to the image of Indian football,” Dutta said.
“Don’t know what is happening in the federation as similar problems were dealt differently last year,” a person, who attended Wednesday’s meeting, lamented.