India women’s football team is scheduled to face Nepal along with hosts Myanmar and Indonesia in the second round of the Olympic qualifiers. But our chances don’t look so bright as the Indian side will not have seven of their invaluable players participating in the women’s national camp.
The seven players from Manipur have alleged discrimination and have also written to the All India Football Federation (AIFF). One of the seven Manipuri players, who have claimed that the federation has discriminated against them, include Bala Devi who has 36 international goals under her belt and the equally popular Kamala Devi.
Kamala has 61 international appearances and the AIFF’s Woman Footballer Of The Year 2017 to her name. On the other hand, Bala led to South Asian Football Federation (SAFF )Cup win in 2016 and also has two Player of The Year Awards to her name.
According to Scroll.in, the reason behind pullouts in such numbers is allegedly the head coach Maymol Rocky and assistant Chaoba Devi, who have been accused of ‘bad behaviour’ and ‘favouritism’.
Here are excerpts from the letter which has not received a response from AIFF:
“Head Coach and Assistant Coach of the National Team are not able to bring the team together and in fact play divide and rule policy leading to a stifling situation in the camp and the team.”
One of the seven players, on condition of anonymity, also shed light on the unfortunate series of events, she said:
“The problems between us and Chaoba Devi started long ago. Some of us do not play for her team Kryphsa and play for other teams in Manipur. That in turn, led to her singling some players out.”
Most of the players, who boycotted the camp, played for the Eastern Sporting Union team in Indian Women’s League (IWL). It is also being said that the 1-1 draw in the Olympic qualifier between India and Nepal was affected by indifference in the team.
Well, we can question the allegations on the Kryphsa coach but cannot ignore the facts. There is a down-slide in India’s performance since the pullout this year. Whereas India were riding high on five consecutive wins, now they have the burden of lacklustre performances. They did not qualify for the Gold Cup final and finished 6th in Turkish Cup.
AIFF is yet to respond to the letter from the players. Meanwhile, Indian football fans can only hope that things get back to normal ahead of the second round of Olympic qualifiers.
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