INDIAN FOOTBALL Time to Wake up

ON 11 JUNE, 2024 India played a qualifier match with Qatar and despite scoring first, failed to qualify.

- Krishan Kalra

There was huge confusion about Qatar’s first goal as it was an unfair award by the referee. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) complained to FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) but, perhaps, there was no response. A re-cap video that went viral clearly shows the ball going out of the Indian box and being dragged back by the Qatari players.

A few days later Boria Majumdar, the highly respected sports columnist, wrote a story in The Economic Times calling it “one of the worst refereeing howlers of recent times”. He went on to mention other such instances of India being at the receiving end in football by citing biased refereeing decisions in

• (a) the Kings Cup match against Iraq last year and

• (b) Mardeka Cup fixture against Malaysia.

Is there some sort of a conspiracy – by the great footballing nations club – to keep us out?

Blatant Abuse of Laws

In my column (BW - 13 January ’24) I had mentioned that “Sports are transparent from start to finish. If you don’t agree with the rules, you are not allowed to play”; perhaps I was wrong! The instances of blatant abuse of laws, quoted by Majumdar, would make one think about the unfair world of the rich pushing out the poor and keeping them out of their elite circle. Similar instances of wrong decisions also happened against Mary Kom at the Tokyo Olympics and Nikhat Zareen at the last Asian Games. How come such things don’t happen against us in cricket? Well, let’s not forget BCCI is the world’s richest cricket body.

What do we need to do about this?