Kolkata: Indian Football Association (IFA) Secretary Joydeep Mukherjee has stated on Monday that Kolkata giants East Bengal could be relegated from the Calcutta Football League (CFL) to a lower division if the club fail to confirm their participation, as per rules.
Following the commencement of the last season of the Indian Super League (ISL), there has been a continuous feud between East Bengal and Shree Cements over the transfer of sporting rights with the future looking unclear. There is no assurance if the heavyweights would take part in the upcoming ISL season.
“We want football to resume, many players, officials are affected (by the pandemic). We don’t want to deprive any club and for one club CFL won’t stop,” Mukherjee said after a meeting with all the club officials. However, no East Bengal representative was present at the meeting citing ‘personal reasons.
“Initially, we had decided to stop relegation but if competitions happen in all divisions, then there will be relegation and the team which pulls out will be relegated to the lower division. It will be a big blow and there are chances that SCEB will face relegation,” added Mukherjee.
The CFL is supposed to begin from the third week of August and seven-day advance notice of the meeting was sent to all the clubs. The absence of East Bengal representatives at the meeting has disappointed the authorities.
“They (SCEB) have not yet specified that they’re not playing. We have mailed the fixture details to all the clubs including SCEB. We have also spoken to the club’s (executive) official Nitu Sarkar in a personal capacity and he said they have no issues,” Mukherjee said.
To have a heavyweight like East Bengal not play in the CFL would be utterly gutting and will also hamper the format of the tournament. Thinking about all these, the IFA was ready to negotiate with the club and their sponsor to sort out differences but not getting any official response from either, they had to unwantedly make such an announcement.
“For the interest of Bengal football, we want all the clubs to play. From our side, there will be no problem, IFA is ready to negotiate but they must come to us,” he said.
