CHENNAI: Just a few days back (August 15), the official Gokulam Kerala FC twitter handle had posted pictures of a few women players at the airport lounge ahead of their departure to Uzbekistan for the AFC Women’s Club Championship along with a message ‘Let your dreams take flight’. The players were visibly happy as they were so close to realising their dreams.
Barely hours later, after landing in Tashkent, it all turned gloomy for the players and the rest of the support staff. The 31-member squad realised that their participation hangs by the thread because of the ban imposed by FIFA (world body) on All India Football Federation (AIFF) on the same day.
Because of the development, the local organisers, going by the strict Asian Football Confederation (AFC) rules, were left with no alternative but to deny the team, who were due to feature in West region matches along with two other clubs at Qarshi that’s one hour flight from Tashkent.
“The organisers have to follow the rules. We can’t blame them. When the ban happened, they were also not sure if they could host us or not. There were talks of ‘when is your next flight to Delhi?’ and all that. The girls were really shattered,” VC Praveen, the club president, told this newspaper on Wednesday.
But Praveen was adamant that the players, who had worked hard to come so far, stay and thus wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office to offer solutions to the matter. That Hail Mary move worked as the sports ministry spoke to the AFC to allow them to stay for 48 hours, which also meant their accommodation and food is being taken care of as of now.
According to the original itinerary, the team was supposed to travel to Qarshi, where the matches will be held, along with the other teams on Wednesday. Having been forced to miss that one-hour flight, the president was hopeful that the girls could at least start their training and had asked the club members to find a place to train.
“It looks like we are unwanted there, sort of. And the players are very emotional. They had been looking forward to this for a long time. I informed my club people to tell them that we are here to play. We will keep our fingers crossed and hope that things will fall in place and we’ll play,” he said.
“Yesterday night (Tuesday), I thought we will write to the PM’s Office also because this is not a random friendly match or something, we earned the right to play in this event,” he added.
Despite the sports ministry’s intervention, the clock is ticking for Gokulam. The Supreme Court is due to hear on August 22 while the event starts on August 20. Gokulam is due to play on August 23. The two-time I-League champions had rightfully earned the right to be part of this marquee event. Despite weather not favouring their training (Kerala monsoons), the team had been putting the hard yards behind the scenes for this.
“Since it’s raining heavily in Kerala, we didn’t even call our men’s team for practice. They usually begin practice on August 15th and for this AFC, we have pushed back that practice too. A lot of effort and dedication was put into the women’s team. We had also made efforts to get players from Ghana, Nepal. We were very serious about this event.”
Having said everything, Praveen is aware this is a difficult issue, and he’s hoping for a ‘miracle’. He’s also planning to write to AFC and FIFA soon. “Our only goal is to play.”