The BDFA Super Division League tie between defending champions KGF Academy and Madras Engineer Group (MEG) at the Bangalore Football Stadium here on Saturday was overshadowed by the refusal of the referees to continue the match after half-time, citing the revocation of the one-year ban imposed on BDFA member and Jupiter FC secretary S Devoo.
The match continued after a 15-minute delay, thanks to the intervention of KSFA Deputy Secretary S A Basheer. Devoo was handed a one-year ban from entering the official enclosure after a fracas involving his team and referee Andrew during a ‘B’ Division game between Jupiter FC and Bangalore Kickers last February. Incidentally Andrew was in charge of the game on Saturday too.
“The Referee Board was not informed of the decision to revoke the ban on Devoo. Even the KSFA is unaware of it. First of all he was lucky to get away with a one-year ban and now even it has been revoked after nine months. KSFA Secretary E Krishna Narayana has assured us that a meeting will be called for in the coming days (by Thursday) and that the matter will be solved amicably. It will be attended by the BDFA, KSFA and the Referee Board representatives,” said M S Krishnamurthy, Chairman of the Referee Board of KSFA.
Charges denied
BDFA Secretary S T Bhoopal denied the charges. “The decision to lift the ban was taken by the BDFA at a meeting 10 days ago. We had informed Krishnamurthy too about it. We could not send an official letter regarding this as we were too busy. Devoo has apologised and he has served a nine-month ban. So we decided to lift the ban,” he said.
Meanwhile, KGF went on to win the match 1-0, thanks to forward Ajay’s strike in the third minute.
Earlier, Chand Pasha netted the winner in the 63rd minute as CIL beat AGORC 1-0 in the ‘A’ Division.
Sunday’s matches: ‘A’ Division: BUFC vs Bangalore Mars (1.00 pm).
Super Division: South United vs Postal (3.00 pm).