Reluctant Mohun Bagan forces organisers to postpone IFA Shield

Mohun Bagan’s reluctance to play in the IFA Shield in order to preserve their players for the second phase of I-League has led to one of the oldest football tournaments in the world to be postponed for the time being. In their executive body meeting on Tuesday, the Indian Football Association rescheduled the IFA Shield for the 2008-09 season — initially supposed to kick off on January 5 — to July. That would, in effect, mean the tournament acts as a precursor to the 2009-10 season. Though IFA secretary Utpal Ganguly claimed that uncertainty over police arrangements was the prime reason behind the decision, the fact remains that, without Mohun Bagan, the tournament would have lost a large part of its glamour. Ganguly said that playing IFA Shield matches at the Yuba Bharati Krirangan and Barasat Stadium would have been a huge problem, as the state police would be busy managing the Gangasagar pilgrimage between January 8 and 18. He, however, couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer when asked as to why the Mohun Bagan ground and the Howrah Stadium were not chosen to host the matches instead.

In fact, the fate of the tournament had been in jeopardy ever since Mohun Bagan showed their reluctance to play. The Bagan management and coach have repeatedly said that they want their players fresh for the second phase of the I-League, and that they would like to give their players adequate time to rest and recuperate after the completion of the first phase. The IFA, though, had maintained that the green-and-maroons would change their decision and agree to play in the tournament, but that did not happen. As a result, the tournament itself had to be rescheduled. The decision to postpone the event has also meant that the IFA runs the risk of losing almost Rs 75 lakhs from TV rights. Troubled past The IFA Shield is the fourth oldest club competition in the world, begun in 1893. The tournament has been cancelled twice before — in 1980 after 16 people died during a Mohun Bagan-East Bengal league match, and then in 1992, when the tournament was cancelled after the first match as communal riots broke out in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition. But while the previous incidents merited cancellation, the situation is completely normal this time. Which only makes the decision more questionable.