Guwahati, April 15: Gauhati Town Club has refused to co-operate with Assam Football Association’s (AFA) proposed probe into the alleged match fixing by the 106-year-old club’s players in the recent second division I-League football tournament in Cuttack.

Responding to a letter from the AFA, which took cognisance of the alleged scandal on the basis of a report published in The Telegraph early last month, asking the GTC for a formal complaint with the AFA or the AIFF, the club has stated that it was their internal matter, which they wanted to solve themselves as they did not have any grievance against the AFA or the AIFF.

“We have replied to the AFA that it is our internal matter and has been sorted out. We have never blamed it on the AFA or the AIFF for it. It is totally our internal matter because our players have admitted to taking bribes to lose matches but never identified who had bribed them. So, if we don’t have the names of those who had bribed our players, against whom can we lodge a complaint? The first question in the probe will be who were the bribers and we will not have an answer,” said GTC general secretary Devajit Saikia.

“Besides, has a single player, among those sacked, approached the AFA or the AIFF claiming himself to be innocent? Had there been any such circumstances, we would have definitely approached the AFA ourselves with our defence,” the general secretary said.

The club has terminated contracts with 18 of its players, including four foreigners and as many West Bengal recruits, who played in the second division league for allegedly fixing matches.

The club has also deducted 25 per cent of contract money from the players concerned.

It has also disbanded its football team and decided not to participate in any senior tournament for the next three years till its own academy players will become fit for the senior turf.

“Players groomed in our own academy will have at least some loyalty towards the club and will not indulge in these kind of misdeeds. Since our basic objective is youth development, we are going to concentrate in the academy now and groom the youngsters to quality footballers. We have also increased the number of trainees to 40 so that we do not fall short of quality players when we will need them the next time,” Saikia said.

AFA secretary Ankur Dutta felt the match-fixing slur was “merely an excuse to hush up mismanagement on the part of the club and its inability to handle professional football team”.

“I am aware that there has been some problem with the management of the football team within the club and thus, it took the step of disbanding the team. I feel, there was no incident of match fixing as far GTC was concerned in the second division league,” Dutta, who is also an AIFF vice-president, said.