Mohun Bagan coach Jahar Das with his team at Salt Lake on Wednesday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta: After Amal Dutta, it was Gley Yao Rodrigue’s turn to face the music.

A day after showing the veteran coach the door, the Mohun Bagan officials on Wednesday released the Togolese forward on grounds of indiscipline.

“Over the past few days, Rodrigue has been irregular in attending practice. He didn’t give a satisfying explanation for his behaviour. So we thought it’s better to do away with an unwilling horse,” club secretary Anjan Mitra said.

“The release order has been sent to him (Rodrigue),” Mitra added.

The Togolese, it may be noted, went into Jahar Das’ bad books on the very first day of the new coach’s session with the team on Wednesday morning when he came to the ground without his kit. Understandably, Das didn’t allow him to practise, questioning his professionalism and brought the matter to the notice of club officials present at the ground.

It provided the new dispensation ? which has been unhappy with Rodrigue’s tendency to skip practice sessions too often ? with an opportunity to ask him to leave.

“We are in search of a new foreigner. Hopefully, we’ll get him before the National Football League,” Mitra added.

Rodrigue, picked by former assistant secretary Balaram Chowdhury, stormed into the Maidan with back-to-back winning goals against East Bengal, helping Mohun Bagan win the CFL Premier Division title.

But with Chowdhury losing the elections to the Mitra camp, so began Rodrigue’s fall from grace. He was totally off-colour during Mohun Bagan’s disastrous outings in the Federation Cup and IFA Shield.

Dutta couldn’t be contacted, but Chowdhury, now in New Delhi on a personal trip, described the decision to release Rodrigue as “very disappointing.”

A senior official in the current dispensation, however, made the point that they would have released Rodrigue much earlier had the club clinched a deal with Jose Ramirez Barreto. Dutta stood in the way, insisting that the Brazilian ? who left the club complaining of some officials’ misbehaviour with him ? was “too old” to fit in his scheme of things.

Barreto eventually signed for Mahindra United and showed he is still a matchwinner by almost single-handedly clinching the coveted Federation Cup for the Mumbai outfit.