KOCHI: The response finally came after an eerie silence from the Indian camp. After a Covid hit Indian team was forced to withdraw from the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup, head coach Thomas Dennerby carried out what was an emotional, explosive and no holds barred press conference while trying to give their side of the story.
"This is my worst feeling as a head coach ever. The team and I are devastated and our dreams are forever gone," said Dennerby during a virtual media interaction on Wednesday.
The Swedish coach blamed the AFC for the situation and suggested that the Confederation could have considered India's case instead of disqualifying them after India couldn't field a team for their second game against Chinese Taipei.
"Honestly, we are not happy with the AFC tournament organisation or the lack of solutions or active dialogue. We think that in one way they destroyed our dreams. But we are not blaming the whole AFC organisation. AFC is a good organisation in total," he said.
According to the rules, a team needs a minimum of 13 players to participate in a match, which India failed to meet as rule 4.1 came into force.
Dennerby suggested that the Indian contingent took all safety precautions and were all negative when entering the bio-bubble for the tournament. According to him, the virus caught on inside the bio-bubble, possibly from the hotel staff.
According to him, the staff were tested on January 17 but the results were delayed and when the results came, many had tested positive.
"The result of the test was given to the AFC on January 18. But AFC did not send the results to the hotel until January 19. Seven hotel staff got infected with Covid, including the team India coordinator, kitchen staff, chef, housekeeping, service staff and all those who were taking care of us while we were quarantined. Why didn’t the AFC send the report earlier? Why wait the whole day? I think that was an unprofessional way to handle it in an AFC bubble, no explanation can be good enough,” he said.
Questioning the protocols inside the bio-bubble, Dennerby went onto ask why frequent tests were not done for the staff. "Why were they not tested every third day as a team? No test for the hotel staff was done between Jan 11 and 17, what we know anyway. I think that was an unprofessional way to handle it in an AFC bubble, a championship, a World Cup qualification," he added.
The first few cases within the Indian camp reported were two technical staff and a player as India managed to complete their first game against Iran.
In follow up tests ahead of their match on January 23, there were multiple cases that left them with just eleven players available as ten players tested positive while two were injured.
Dennerby said they rejected the suggestion of the AFC Tournament Director to add the two injured players to play the game. "Relevant questions - why wasn't the match against Chinese Taipei cancelled earlier? What was AFC waiting for? If AFC already sent us out of this tournament, why do it this painful way? No respect, no compassion, no empathy. Did AFC want to look like fools? Bringing two players in wheelchairs with plastic casts to the match? Is that showing the team respect? At this moment, we have 19 players and six staff infected," he questioned.
Dennerby was visibly upset and didn't hide his disappointment while delivering the statement. "Almost six months of sacrifice, dream, passion and the team and staff did not even go home over Christmas and New Year's Eve all to stay safe. For what? I and the team are devastated," he said.