Another jolt suffered in the Hero I-League with the Shillong-based side Royal Wahingdoh FC deciding not to play in the forthcoming edition, thus becomes the third I-League club to pull out of the country’s top league competition this season. Pune FC and Bharat FC had already decided to stop playing in the top division league earlier this year.
“It is correct that we have decided to pull out of the upcoming I-League season. We have notified this to the AIFF,” Anoop de Melo, the Royal Wahingdoh Secretary told reporters without elaborating. Wahingdoh plied their trade in the Hero I-League for the maiden time in the previous season and finished third on the standings under some ineffable performance under coach Santosh Kashyap.
Another reason that pricked the club to take the decision was the recent fiasco to comply with the licensing criteria as their home stadium does not adhere to the credentials. However, Royal Wahingdoh, alongside the only Mumbai outfit Mumbai FC & Shillong Lajong FC, was granted the all important National Licenses to take part in I-League 2015-16. The Pune existences Pune FC & Bharat FC failed to fulfill both the financial and personal criteria according to the AFC Licensing as well as the national regulations.
Last year, the Hero I-League was played among 11 teams and out of those, eight teams remain with the pulling out of three clubs — Pune FC, Bharat FC and Royal Wahingdoh. With new entrants DSK-Shivajians, the I-League 2016 will competed among nine clubs as each team will play 16 matches respectively in a home and away basis. The situation might create another problem as the champion club could eventually find it difficult to take part in the AFC Cup as it needs at least 20 matches to play in a premier football tournament for a club to participate in the continental championship.
All it needed was a little care and pro-active approach from the All India Football Federation before pushing or allowing it in further going down. But as it said, better late than never! It is high time for the clubs as well to awake themselves from their thought process which loves to belong to the “Seven Sleepers’ den”, otherwise it could just turn out to be a little too late for everything.