Players of Prayag United SC and Jammu & Kashmir Police in action during the first match of the All India Football Tournament for Bihar Cup at Moin-ul-Haq Stadium in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Jan. 17: The All India Football Tournament for Bihar Cup at Moin-ul-Haq stadium started today with a close contested match between Prayag United SC and Jammu & Kashmir Police. Score line reading 0-0 after 90 minutes, there was penalty shootout. Prayag won 5-3.

Prayag United SC ran away with the match as it converted all its penalties. The Jammu & Kashmir Police team failed to convert its fourth shot.

Players from the Calcutta-based Prayag United SC cheered their colleagues as Vibhash Sarkar, Jagarnath Oroan, Bijoy Chakraborty, Babun Das and Navratra Ghosh converted their penalties one after the other. The first three shots from the spot were converted by Ajay Kumar, Faiyal Ahmad and Romesh Verma for the J&K team. Their hopes were dashed as Asiq Hussain missed the net.

Soccer fans from the state capital would get a chance to give their vocal cords some exercise tomorrow as local team Raj Milk Patna fights it out against Uttaranchal Police. The other match would be played between Denzong Boys Sikkim and RK Steel Siwan.

The turnout for today’s match was, however, very low. Some spectators present on the field said it did not appear that a football tournament of this standard was being held after a long gap of two decades. The stadium, which has a capacity of 30,000 people, registered a turnout of barely 500 today.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who was present as the tournament kicked off, said the tourney should have been more promoted. “The organising committee of the game should create more awareness about the game with proper advertising,” he said.

Sixteen teams, including Mohun Bagan SAIL Football Academy (Durgapur, Bengal), Khidderpore Sporting Club (Calcutta), the junior team of Prayag United SC (Calcutta), Tata Football Academy (Jamshedpur), Punjab Police (Jalandhar) and Jammu & Kashmir Police are participating in the tournament being organised by the state government as part of the Bihar centenary celebrations.

Arjuna Awardee Chandeshwar Prasad, who has played for the Indian foot- ball team between 1965 and 1971, said: “The main reason behind the state not producing enough sportspersons is because there is a lack of support from the government in promoting sports activities.”

Prasad, who had come to see the match, said: “Apart from support from state government there is hardly any ground in Patna where players can play games.”