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FC Kochy denied entry for Federation Cup

Kerala Football Association secretary K Bodhanandan has accused the All-India Football Federation of acting against the interests of Indian football. The provocation for his outburst in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday was the non-acceptance of FC Kochy for the Kalyani Black Label Federation Cup Tournament, which will run from May 11 to July 13 and which will be held at 12 venues with the final at Calcutta.

The eight quarter-finalists of last year - winners East Bengal, runners-up Dempo, Jagajit Cotton and Textiles Mills, Mohun Bagan, Salgaocar, Border Security Force and Indian Telephone Industries - have been seeded into the round of the last 16.

The remaining eight places will be filled by qualifiers from five zones - North, North-east, East, South and West with eight teams in each zone. Two teams each from the East, South and West zones will progress to the pre-quarter-finals. From the North and the North-east only one team each will make it.

This is the first time since the then secretary of the AIFF, the late A T Vijayarangam, initiated 20 years ago the Federation Cup to determine the champion club of the country to participate in the Asian Cup for champion clubs. Interestingly the first Federation Cup champion, Indian Telephone Industries of Bangalore, who shocked favourite Mohun Bagan which had several internationals and was coached by P K Bannerjee, by a solitary goal in the final, did not get to play in the Asian Cup. For, well before the final, the champion state of the country, Bengal, had been nominated to represent India. Till the Federation Cup came into being, the Santosh Trophy winner had represented India. Thus it was that, besides Bengal, Punjab and Karnataka also had participated in the Asian Cup.

The vastness of the country, varying seasons and climatic conditions and travel problems, besides the lack of appeal at the gates of several champion clubs of states, persuaded the AIFF to start the Federation Cup as an invitation event. This helped to nip in the bud claims of mediocre champion clubs taking part in the tournament.

To make the tournament attractive to the leading clubs, Vijayarangam and the AIFF had offered terms which, in those days, were far better than those of other tournaments. He had hoped that the investment would yield returns that would aid a players' benevolent fund and other development programmes. It is not known if the tournament has brought enough profits for such programmes.

In the seventies, the presence of the three Calcutta clubs, Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting, was a sine qua non for success of a tournament. This the AIFF was aware of, and so included all three, though logically only one of them could be the Calcutta champion. This norm was extended to other states and cities, like Bombay (Mafatlal, Tata Sports, Orkay Mills, all of whom now have withdrawn from football activity, Mahindra & Mahindra, Air India), Goa (Dempo, Salgaocar, Vasco, Churchill Brothers) and Punjab (Leaders Club, BSF and JCT Mills), though only two from each of these states or cities usually were in the fray in a particular year.

In the context of FC Kochy, it would be interesting to recall the inclusion of Tata Sports and Mafatlal in 1982 or 1983, though neither finished as the Bombay league winner or runner-up. Indeed, neither winner Century Rayon nor runnerup on goal difference Central Railway was in the draw. After protests, Century Rayon was included, but not Central Railway.

It is also interesting that Century Rayon was on the point of winding up the team when it made its first and only appearance in the tournament. This, in a manner of speaking, was the reverse of what has happened to FC Kochy.

AIFF president Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi announced last Sunday that, like Khalsa Sports of Chandigarh and Tigers Club of Rajasthan, F C Kochy had not taken part in the local league of last season. He has asked the respective states to nominate alternate teams.

KFA secretary Bodhanandan, who had an unhappy experience with the AIFF when organising the second Jawaharlal Nehru International Gold Cup in 1983, has taken umbrage at the AIFF first including the newly formed FC Kochy when announcing the format for the coming Kalyani Black Label Federation Cup with a field of 48 teams, with 40 of them fighting for eight places. The team from Kerala, which boasts five members of the current national side, besides several other leading state players, has credentials better than those of many others, although it has not been proved on the field. And the KFA is convinced that the new club was worthy of inclusion, and hence had nominated it as one of the two Kerala entrants.

Two factors may have influenced Bodhanandan's view. First, a clear direction from the AIFF that only those teams that had played in the local league the previous season would be eligible. Second, the fact that the tournament is being sponsored by United Breweries to promote one of its products, Kalyani Black Label whisky, and that FC Kochy is being sponsored by the same company. As a matter of fact, UB's Deepak Chaudhary had told the press at the meet to announce the new format of the event that FC Kochy will be making their debut in the tournament this year.

The formation of FC Kochy could be the right trailblazer for Indian football, in which government departmental and industrial houses' teams greatly outnumber true clubs in the upper echelons. As a result our football suffers from handicaps that stultify, nay even choke, its development. More clubs like FC Kochy coming up would rectify imbalances and quicken growth on the right lines. They can make the introduction of professional football meaningful.

The AIFF's decision to deny FC Kochin entry is bad, because this club cannot be equated with Tigers Club and Khalsa Sports, whose rosters do not include men with the skill and experience of internationals like I M Vijayan, Raman Vijayan, Carlton Champion, Jo Paul Ancheri and Sumit Mukherjee.

What the AIFF avers is that a new club must work its way up and earn its place in the top ranks. But if this yard-stick is applied to a club like FC Kochy, it is unlikely that internationals would be willing to come together in a team and perform in the lower division for two or three years. In that time their enthusiasm could wane, and so could also their skill thorough absence of testing under pressure of tough opposition.

And if that is allowed to happen, the loss will be not only those of the international players, of the club and the state but also of the national team and the game in the country at large. Fewever and fewer fans, and among them young lads, would watch them in action and learn to emulate them.

The AIFF decision also will send wrong signals to the promoters of the club. For, if the club cannot take part in major domestic events and knit the players into a strong combination, it would be difficult to acquit itself well in the National League. As it is, the promoters may have reservations about being invited to take part in the qualifying matches for the National League. In that event, they will not loosen their purse strings not only to recruit more players locally but also at much greater expense from abroad.

All this makes you feel that instead of being guided by norms of local leagues and tournaments, the AIFF would have served the game better in the country with a more pragmatic approach which would have paved the way for the participation of FC Kochy in the coming Kalyani Black Label Federation Cup.