Kolkata: Crowd violence in Sunday’s semi-final between India and Nepal in the South Asian Football Federation’s (SAFF) women’s competition will be taken up by the All India Football Federation (AIFF). India lost the match that was stopped for over 70 minutes in the tie-breaker after having taken led from open play.

“The All India Football Federation has taken note of the incidents that happened during the SAFF Women’s Championship 2024 semi-final in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Sunday, October 27, 2024. The AIFF will write to SAFF regarding the incidents and will take it up at the appropriate platform. The India U19 women’s team faced an almost similar situation in a SAFF tournament in the recent past (in Bangladesh last February), and the AIFF feels such things are not good for the development of football in the region,” according to an AIFF statement on Monday.

“For the All India Football Federation, the safety of the women players and staff is always of utmost importance. It is proud of the way the Senior Women’s National Team players, support staff, and officials displayed remarkable restraint and conducted themselves on the pitch under tiring circumstances in Kathmandu. The team came out with their heads high,” the statement said.

The match, at the Dasharath Rangashala, was interrupted by stoppages, the first of which came when Nepal’s Rekha Poudel was sent off following a second booking. Nepal protested Bhutan referee Om Choki’s decision and the team was backed by an angry crowd who began throwing missiles forcing an assistant-referee to leave her line.

The match resumed after 12 minutes and India took the lead in the 62nd minute through Sangita Basfore’s long-ranger. As the players gathered at the dugout to celebrated, Nepal, apparently because Choki had blown the whistle to restart, put the ball into an empty net. The goal was disallowed and chaos broke out.

As bottles – some of them filled with urine, a member of the Indian contingent told HT over the phone from Kathmandu on Monday – flew from the crowd, Nepal left the pitch and India stayed. It took over one hour for play to resume. It is not known why the staff comprising former internationals Pinky Magar, Tababi Devi and coach Santosh Kashyap did not get the team to leave the pitch. It is also not known if anyone in AIFF asked them to.

Sabitra Bhandari equalised soon after the restart. The team leading is at a disadvantage in such situations, Kashyap said at the post-match press conference. In the audio clip of his press conference shared by AIFF, a man’s voice was heard saying in Hindi that Nepalese get carried away while supporting their team and throw bottles. Laughter followed.

Nepal converted all their shots beating India’s substitute goalie, the debutant Payal Basude who replaced Panthoi Chanu in 90+3 minutes. Manisha and Karishma Shorvoikar scored for India, skipper Ashalata Devi and Ranjana Chanu missed.

This was the second time in 2024 that an India women’s team faced crowd violence in a SAFF competition. In Dhaka on February 24, that happened after winning the under-19 final via coin toss. Following crowd trouble and three hours later, India and Bangladesh were declared joint-winners.

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