No tickets, city footballers miss the train to Nationals

Deepankar Sharda
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, June 18

City’s budding footballers were robbed of a chance to participate in the Hero Sub-Junior Girls’ National Football Championship after the Chandigarh Football Association (CFA) failed to book the tickets for the team.

The tournament, organised in Cuttack, started on June 7. Chandigarh were supposed to take on Rajasthan on the opening day, followed by matches against Madhya Pradesh on June 11 and Tamil Nadu on June 14.

No trials were conducted to select the team for the championship, neither was any information given to the local schools regarding the tournament. Strangely, CFA waited to see if there was availability of tickets before selecting the team for the competition.

While CFA president KP Singh chose to remain silent on the issue, secretary Rakesh Bakshi said that the association was not willing to take the risk of sending the sub-junior girls’ team on such a long journey without confirmed tickets.

“We did not get confirmed tickets for the team… we cannot take any risk and were very clear with our decision. For this reason, we did not conduct the trials,” said Bakshi.

In April, a footballer’s parent had alleged that the association asked members of the junior girls’ team to pay for the return tickets before the AIFF Junior Girls’ Football Championship in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.

“As per the usual practice, the association applies for tickets after the selection of the team or during the preparation camp. This would be for the first time that the status of the tickets was checked before making any selection,” said a coach who did not wish to be named. 

“It is difficult to get train tickets during this time of the year… if CFA is not at fault, then the AIFF must have failed to inform them about the tournament well in time,” the coach added.