The Delhi Soccer Association, during its Executive Committee Meeting this week, imposed a lifetime ban on 10 Indian footballers on account of suspicions of match-fixing on multiple occasions.
Among the players is a former youth Indian international, who represented the country in the AIFF (All India Football Federation) Youth Cup in 2016 and was in the squad in the subsequent BRICS U-17 Football tournament, wherein he was a torchbearer.
Tamal Naskar, the goalkeeper of Delhi Premier League side Tarun Sangha, was the first name in the list of players submitted by DSA, in a letter to the All India Football Federation.
He had previously plied his trade in the reserve sides of Bengaluru FC and Chennaiyin FC.
Other names on the list, from the same club, include Satish Singh, Abhijit Das, Muslim Molla, Saddam Hossain and Sannik Murmu.
Delhi football was mired in controversy earlier this year when a DPL match between Rangers Sports Club and Ahbab Football Cub, on February 19, saw two weird own goals late in the second half, sparking suspicions of fixing in domestic football.
The guilty club, Ahbab FC, was suspended by the DSA soon after the match, while the Delhi Premier League Sub Committee’s Chairman Rizwan Ul Haq was served a show-cause notice.
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While the DSA chief Anuj Gupta, along with the AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey, lodged a complaint at the Anti-Corruption Bureau in New Delhi about fixing in the league, legal movement in the case has not happened so far.
On July 24th, the DSA wrote to the AIFF, stating that it had imposed a permanent ban on players they had found suspicious about match-fixing.
“I would like to request you to ban these players on AIFF CRS from registering with/transferring to any club in Delhi,” read the letter, a copy of which Sportstar has seen.
“We didn’t take any action just because it seemed that it was all fixed to the naked eye. We took action based on the reports,” Anuj Gupta, the president of DSA, told Sportstar.
Anuj added that there were multiple ‘Red Flag’ reports about these 10 players, given by Genius, a Singapore-based company that detects cases related to the possibility of fixing or betting.
The ‘Red Flag’ reports were given, he said, for the possibility of match-fixing in more than two games or if the players had been banned outside the duration of Delhi.
“For instance, there were a couple of players (who played in DPL last season) who went and played in Bhutan, where they got banned. Then there were some who went from here to Calcutta and got banned there,” he explained.
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While six of the players are from one club, the remaining are from the two clubs involved in the controversial February 19 game between Rangers and Ahbab.
“We suspended one player (Md. Samim) who did the self-goal, not only because of that goal but because had a lot of red flag reports against him. There were multiple allegations,” Anuj said.
List of players banned by the DSA:
“We are very clear, in terms of our no-tolerance policy against racial discrimination and any form of fixing. So, we said that it’s better that we take this as a precedent so that going forward, such cases act as a deterrent for anyone to think twice before entering into this,” Anuj added.
Though the AIFF had earlier said it would start an investigation on the issue, an official statement has yet to arrive from the apex football body since February 2024, regarding the same.
“If the players want to play in Delhi, they can always go to the court and get a stay (order). But till the matter is pending in the anti-corruption (bureau), I had to make some decisions,” Anuj said.
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