ISL Diary: Lax refereeing, tough AIFF President

East Bengal head coach Carles Cuadrat could only despair at the glaring refereeing oversights when his team was denied two clear penalties against Odisha FC, which saw the match ending goalless and the Kolkata giant had to be satisfied with a point. Action replays showed that the Odisha defender Mourtada Fall had clearly handled the ball while trying to block East Bengal striker Javier Severio’s shot. Minutes later Odisha’s other defender, Jerry Lalrinzuala, brought down the East Bengal’s attacker P. V. Vishnu by tugging the latter’s jersey inside his own box. It was a clear case of infringement that called for a penalty but referee S. Senthil Nathan failed to notice the foul and looked the other way.

Cuadrat was visibly vexed at the lax supervision and rued that his side was the victim of “inconsistent refereeing”. East Bengal’s case was one among the many instances of refereeing errors in the ongoing Indian Super League (ISL) that have been reported by the participating clubs. This prompted the All India Football Federation (AIFF) president, Kalyan Chaubey, to call for an urgent need for accountability on the part of the referee department. The AIFF president urged officials to take serious note of the continuous errors and mounting refereeing issues this season in India’s top two leagues, the ISL and the I-League, during a ‘Refereeing Review Meeting’, held on New Year’s eve.

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The AIFF president, who is a former goalkeeper having represented a number of top flight clubs in the country, knew the bane of poor refereeing and “expressed concern over the mounting referee issues and deprivation of ‘fair play’ due to plain sight errors for participating clubs,” said an AIFF report. The meeting, which lasted more than four hours, found a total of 24 controversial ‘Key Match Incidents’ (KMI) from seven ISL and four I-League games. “Clubs have submitted hard evidence in the form of videos to back their claims. As officials and administrators, we have to work towards minimising these mistakes. We cannot hide behind the mask of the ‘acceptable 15 per cent human error norm’. Most of these complaints are of plain sight errors falling under the 15 per cent norm, which hampers the clubs, players and leagues,” Chaubey said.

AIFF had set up the Elite Development Referee Programme in January 2023 but it is yet to bear results. “Through the reviews of the videos we have a clear case of one club being at the receiving end of refereeing decisions that went against them twice in two games of the 10 played so far. In their argument, that’s 20% of wrong decisions against them, ruining their prospects in the season campaign,” said the AIFF president, appearing to uphold East Bengal’s complaint in this reference.

Amitabha Das Sharma

Luna love

In the past decade a couple of international players have managed to strike a chord with the Kerala Blasters faithfuls. Canadian Iain Hume, with his bald plate and boundless energy, was the first overseas star to make an impact with the Kochi crowd. Humettan, as he was called, left a lasting impression with the fans during his stay in Kochi.

However, after Hume, Kerala Blasters fans never had an overseas hero to look up to until Adrian Luna arrived in the 2021 season. The Uruguayan, with his sublime skills and scoring ability, quickly became the toast of the Kochi crowd. The recent resurgence of the Kochi side could be attributed to his on-field brilliance as he dared the Kerala Blasters fans to dream big once again.

This season, the midfielder had seamlessly slipped into his role of influential creator as Kerala Blasters probably enjoyed its best start. However, Luna picked up an injury during training, which was initially thought to be minor one. But after undergoing surgery, it dawned on everyone that he would be unavailable for the rest of the season.

On Christmas eve, when Kerala Blasters played Mumbai City, the crowd at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium was the biggest of the season. The Manjappada expressed their support and admiration for Luna by unveiling a massive tifo that read ‘Recharge Luna We await your Magic’.

The Uruguayan appreciated the act of the fans and, in an emotional post on Instagram, paid tribute to the yellow loyalists. He said he could feel the atmosphere in the stadium while being in Mexico.

“Thank you guys, this means a lot. This motivates me to come back stronger than before. It was great to see boys giving out everything on the pitch and getting that deserved victory against MCFC.

The atmosphere in the stadium was electric. I could feel that from Mexico. Can’t wait to be back, see you all.” said Luna in post.

It seems, his team has coped to live without his absence as Kerala Blasters posted an impressive win to keep its home record intact.

M. R. Praveen Chandran