Kolkata: The disciplinary committee of Indian Football Association (IFA) on Wednesday failed to take any action against East Bengal and Mohun Bagan officials. Mohun Bagan officials Srinjoy Bose, Debasish Dutta along with Kalyan Majumder and Debabrata Sarkar of East Bengal were show caused by the parent body for their remarks in the media following the decision of IFA to give three points to East Bengal. The Calcutta Football League derby was called off after a no-show from Mohun Bagan. East Bengal, who turned up for the match at the Kalyani Municipal Stadium were given walk over by referee Pranjal Banerjee. Mohun Bagan stood firm on their decision to not field a team.
The disciplinary committee meeting was attended by IFA secretary Utpal Ganguly, Amlan Kusum Naha , Pradipto Mukherjee, Biswanath Mukherjee and Debasis Banerjee. Two members of the Disciplinary Committee – Joydeep Koley and Subhasish Sarkar were not present today.
After going through the paper cutting and reports in various media, the committee decided to analyse the video footage before coming to a decision.
According to IFA secretary Utpal Ganguly, “We sat down today with all the paper cuttings. They were supposed to give their show cause reply by November 28 which they did. Accordingly we sat down with their replies sent to us. The committee felt the need of looking at the video footages before coming to a decision.”
On being asked about the delay in sending their replies, Mr Ganguly said to the media, “Most of them (officials of both clubs) informed us that they were not in town. And the last date for sending their show cause reply was set for November 28. ” He further added , “The show cause replies that they sent us did not suggest they were going for any confrontation.”
The strange situation was a result of tussle between Mohun Bagan and the Indian Football Association, as both parties refused to budge.
Mohun Bagan had demanded a postponement because of “lack of practice” at the venue which is about 60kms from the city but IFA stuck to its original schedule.
With the walk-over, the red-and-gold brigade took an unassailable 24 points at the top of the 11-team table to be declared winners of the league for a record seventh successive time. Mohun Bagan remained on 16 points from eight matches.
The last time such an instance happened was in 1985, when the same team Mohun Bagan did not turn up.