Friday , March 29 2024

Ozone FC to play U-16 Youth League final with a court order over alleged overage allegations!

The final of the U-16 Youth League for the Nike Premier Cup is set to be played tomorrow with defending champions Minerva Punjab FC taking on Ozone FC Bengaluru at the Cooperage Football Stadium in Mumbai.

But not all is good in the run up to the final, then there are allegations against Ozone FC of having reached the final with a number of overage players, meaning that they are not below 16 years of age.

The AIFF even suspended Ozone FC ahead of their semifinal yesterday against Shillong Lajong FC as there were questions of authenticity of birth certificates of as many as five Ozone FC players issued by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike.

But a Karnataka High Court issued a stay order on Tuesday, February 7 restrained the U-16 Youth League committee from debarring Ozone FC from playing their semifinal, which they went on to win and will now play the final of the U-16 Youth League.

Minerva Punjab FC CEO Ranjit Bajaj said on the matter, “With 2017 U-17 World Cup coming up and the Prime Ministers initiative to develop football, even small clubs like ours are trying hard to avoid overage and ineligible players at every cost and even AIFF is doing their bit by random testing and heavy penalties like ban for two years for clubs found to be doing age fraud; so its disheartening to see court orders being used to field questionable players and avoid penalties. The ultimate loser in the scenario is Indian football as we can never progress if our system is rotted by age fraud which is the biggest enemy of Indian football.”

This episode leaves a bad taste on a tournament which is intended to unearth new young Indian football talent, but once more there is an unacceptable involvement of the courts in football matters, which actually needs to be looked into and solved by the AIFF as the parent body of football in India.

About Arunava Chaudhuri

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