The Bangalore team, captained by Indian captain Sunil Chhetri, reached Maldives on Friday, where it was to play against the Eagles.
Sunil Chhetri is the captain of Bengaluru FC
Bengaluru FC (Bengaluru FC), captained by Indian captain Sunil Chhetri, seems to be stuck in great difficulty. The ISL club left for Maldives on Friday for the match against Club Eagles in the AFC Cup playoff tie. The play-off match was to be played between the two clubs on 11 May. However, now clouds of crisis are hovering over it. The Sports Minister of the host country has asked Bengaluru FC (Bengaluru FC) to leave the country over the alleged violation of Kovid-19 rules. The real nature of the alleged breach by the BFC has not been known but Sports Minister Ahmed Mahloof has termed it as “unacceptable behavior”.
Sunil Chhetri’s team defeated Nepal’s club Tribhuvan Army FC 5-0 in the opening round-2 match of the AFC Cup. After this, he was to play the match between the Eagles and Abahani Limited Dhaka from the winning team. But the club of Bangladesh withdrew from the AFC Cup qualifiers due to Corona status in the country after which the Eagles reached the playoff tie.
Sports Minister tweeted
The Bangalore team, led by Indian captain Sunil Chhetri, reached Maldives on Friday. Mahlouf wrote on his official Twitter handle, ‘Unacceptable treatment of Bengaluru FC, violating strict guidelines by the Health Defense Agency and AFC (Confederation of Asian Football)’. He wrote, ‘We have informed the Maldives Football Association that we cannot organize the match and have asked them to prepare for the departure of Bengaluru FC. We will talk to the AFC through the Maldives Football Association to postpone the group stage.
Unacceptable behavior from @bengalurufc breaching the strict guidelines from HPA & @theafcdotcom.
The club should leave 🇲🇻 immediately as we can’t entertain this act.
We honoured the commitment we gave a few months back even with the surge in cases & pressure from the public. https://t.co/RXxma0hyjm
– Ahmed Mahloof (@AhmedMahloof) May 8, 2021
All the matches were to be held in Maldives
Maldives have to organize all Group D matches except play-offs as the AFC wants to conduct all matches at the same venue in view of the Kovid-19 pandemic. After Mahluf’s tweet, all the matches in Group D have also been clouded with suspicion. ATK Mohun Bagan will face the winner of the play-off between the BFC and the Eagles in their first match on 14 May. In another tweet, Mahloof said, “We have honored our commitment made a few months ago, despite increasing cases and public pressure.”
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