IWL 2 club left with 8 players as others leave for State championship

Delhi: Indian football is a dramatic space where anything can happen from an astrologer helping the national team in selections to clubs being without players in the middle of an ongoing league.

In one such incident, Indian Women's League 2 club City Bahadurgarh FC was left with just eight players for their last fixture as 12 players of the team left for the Haryana Senior State Championships.

The team will be fielding their eight players in the final group stage clash against Khad FC tomorrow.

"The players said that they wanted to participate in Haryana senior state championships and we couldn't do anything as the dates are clashing," club manager Vinay Joon told The Bridge over the phone from Goa.

"In the absence of a professional contract at this level, there is nothing we could do. Despite reaching here with great difficulties, this is a new lesson for us and we will learn from it," he said.

At the level of IWL 2, there are consent forms signed and a mutual understanding between the players and the club.

The senior state championships of Haryana are starting on March 29th and the girls will be featuring there for their respective districts. As per the sources, the girls left in two batches from Goa with one batch of girls leaving as early as 3 am on Wednesday.

City Bahadurgarh FC won the inaugural Haryana Women's League earlier this year and booked their IWL 2 berth becoming the first club to represent Haryana.

Following their win, the club had to organize the money through crowdfunding campaigns and help from the villagers to manage their expenses for the second-tier Women's league of the country.

A helpless situation at this level signals many things with one of them being the poor scheduling and the other being no value for second-tier tournaments by State Football Associations.