Kolkata: The long going tussle between Mohun Bagan Athletic club and the Indian Football Association (IFA) continued as the Kolkata giant now threatened to pull out of the state’s principal football sport body, owing to ‘partiality’ and biasness towards arch-rivals East Bengal in the Calcutta Football League.
The club officials in a meeting held at the club premises formed a five member core committee which will take a decision on the club’s future course of action, that also includes “de-affiliation” from the IFA and also seeking affiliation from any other state association.
Club Secretary Anjan Mitra, Assistant Secretary Srinjoy Bose, finance secretary Debasis Dutta, Satyajit Chatterjee and Swapan Banerjee were chosen as members of the committee, said the club in a statement.
“The issue of unprofessional attitude and partial behaviour of The Indian Football Association (WB) towards the club and because of the same, the possibility of de- affiliating from The IFA has been also discussed in the meeting. The Executive Members has unanimously taken the decision to form a 5 members Core Committee,” the club added in the statement.
The matter of such partiality however rose when East Bengal were awarded a controversial penalty in a match against Patha Chakra in the CFL, when the game was heading for a 1-2 draw. Prior to that Bagan in their match against Rainbows SC were not awarded a penalty from a similar situation, raising the debate of partialness.
Courtesy that win East Bengal went on to win their record eight consecutive CFL title after putting up a valiant 2-2 draw in the final match of the season, a Kolkata derby despite going behind twice in the match.
Meanwhile IFA secretary, Utpal Ganguly when asked on the matter replied saying, “Hope they don’t do something like this. It’s their decision and I would not like to comment further.”