xtratime Logo

[caption id="attachment_21961" align="alignnone" width="580"] MB officials addressing a press meet at the club tent on Tuesday. Xtra Time[/caption] Kolkata:  Fate of the Kolkata derby remained undecided a day before the match following the decisions of Mohun Bagan club. IFA and East Bengal club declared their decision to play the match. However, Mohun Bagan demanded 48 hours more to practice at the Kalyani ground. Though IFA stuck to their decision to organise the match on 7th September.

Today IFA called a press meet to declare that they were going to organise the match on the same the day declared previously. Prior to that meeting, a letter from Mohun Bagan club arrived claiming that police did not gave the permission to organise the match on Kalyani ground.

However, IFA secretary Utpal Ganguly nullified that claim. He said, "Police permission was needed for the match which we got earlier. For the temporary gallery, there was also objection from the part of police. But we decided to organise the match devoid of the temporary gallery. So it is confirmed that security is no issue at Kalyani."

IFA is still waiting for Mohun Bagan to play the derby. IFA clarified that they were ready to organise the match tomorrow. Mohun Bagan is expected to inform about playing the match at least half an hour ahead of the match. But this evening also, they did not confirm of playing the match.

However, Mohun Bagan official Anjan Mitra claimed, “We will not flee away. We wanted to play. Police did not permit the match there. Why IFA is so adamant?” Another official from the club Debashis Dutta claimed that, “18 people among 20 did not see the Kalyani ground. We wanted 48 hours of extention to practice before the match.”

On the other hand, East Bengal stuck to their decision to play the match on the scheduled day. East Bengal official Debabrata Sarkar declared, “We will play the match tomorrow. May be they want a referee like Debasish Mandi. But we wont play the match a day later to 7th September. They could not do this if it was a Federation match. We are ready for tomorrow”.