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Calcutta: The Calcutta Football League (CFL) Premier Division match between Kingfisher East Bengal and BNR was abandoned after the latter refused to take the field under the lights. The IFA League sub-committee will decide the fate of the match after match commissioner’s report comes in.
East Bengal were leading 1-0, courtesy Penn Orji’s 48th-minute strike, when bad light stopped the proceedings with 22 minutes still left to be played. There was no improvement in light for the next half an hour because of heavy rain.
Under the circumstances, what would have been ideal was the match commissioner Supriya Bhattacharya’s immediate call to abandon the match.
Instead, what followed was unnecessary drama for the next one hour and 40 minutes. It was learnt that a top IFA official instructed the match officials to complete the tie despite all the adversities. The IFA official said he will ask the stadium authority to switch on the floodlights.
However, it was difficult to switch on the floodlight as it was still under renovation. It took almost an hour for the engineers to bring the lights to function properly.
But it was not only that the off-field drama took the centre stage on Saturday, there was relentless drama on the field too.
With floodlights partially lit, Bhattacharya and referee Asit Sarkar asked both the teams to take the field. But BNR refused, saying that there isn’t sufficient light.
With East Bengal keen to take the field, their coach Trevor James Morgan got involved in an argument with one of the BNR officials. Morgan thought that the partially-lit floodlight was enough for a restart but BNR obviously thought otherwise.
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