Former ISL footballer arrested for running prostitution racket

A former Kerala footballer was arrested by the Vasco police in Goa for running a prostitution parlour in the port town. Nidhin Lal, a goalkeeper who played for I-League teams like Mumbai FC, Shillong Lajong FC, Minerva Punjab FC and even turned out in the Indian Super League (ISL) for Chennaiyin FC, was nabbed along with his aide Shyni Joseph.

After the police received an information about sexual services at a spa parlour, a raid was conducted with a decoy customer being sent to the location. The women, and the owners, were subsequently caught red-handed. The three women - a local, one from Sangli in Maharashtra and a Nepalese - were rescued. It also came to light that Lal lived off the earnings that the women made.

A case was filed and registered under the Immoral Traffic Act and under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code. The footballer, along with Joseph, were taken into police custody by the Vasco JMFC, where they will remain for six days.

At the start of the month, Lal was in the news after he had accused his former I-League club Minerva Punjab FC of not clearing his dues for over eight months. He also accused the club of denying him the No Objection Certificate (NOC) that would have given him the permission to play for another club and added that the team owners had threatened to beat him up when he asked for his salary.

In a press conference that was held in Goa, Lal had stated, "The club management did not give me salary for eight months. One day, the owner Ranjit Bajaj called me to his office where he and his staff threatened to beat me up." He had also proceeded to show the journalists a Whatsapp conversation with Bajaj, in which he had been threatened to have his career "destroyed" for speaking out against the club.

"Despite going through such mental stress, I performed well in my last three matches for the club. Therefore, I had garnered some interest from a club in Kerala for the 2019-20 season," Lal had added.