In-house fighting could end up cancelling Chennai Football League altogether

In-house fighting could end up cancelling Chennai Football League altogether

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As many as 2000 players playing in the league under Chennai Football Association could see their careers in jeopardy with in-house fighting of associations and lack of clarity about their future. With as many as 13 cases reportedly pending, CFA is yet to contest a single of them and move to court.

For the past one year, there has been a tussle going on between the Tamil Nadu Football Association (TFA) and Chennai Football Association (CFA), which has now started to seemingly affect the livelihoods of the players across all the five divisions as the league is on the brink of getting cancelled.

The problem started when the Madras High Court declared the Chennai Football Association (CFA) elections, which happened in July last year, as null and void. The verdict consequently saw president Rohit Ramesh, assistant secretary Hari Prasad and a few other office-bearers handing their resignations.

With no one as the authority of the senior division, the first, second, third and fourth, which consists of 96 clubs, all are now in the dark. 

"There are a total of 96 clubs which play the leagues. With the association in turmoil and no clarity on the future of the league, most of the private clubs haven't built their teams this season. Each team used to employ around 20 players… so a lot of these players are likely to lose out on their livelihood. With summer about to set in, time is running out for CFA too as players won't be able to play in the heat," said a private club official, reported TOI.

However, current CFA secretary E Sugumaran has given assurance that it could still organize and end the league in a month as was the case last year when the senior division league started in mid-March and ended in April for the other leagues to begin in December. This time, however, only two second-division matches have been in December before the court's order messed up everything. 

"We will approach the court and hopefully the court will overturn the case in our favour. We finished the league in a month's time last season. This season, too, it is possible," Sugumaran said.

A TFA official has, however, stated that they don’t want to jeopardize the future of the players asking CFA to resolve the issues quickly. "We want the players to play and we don't want to impede their future. It is CFA only who are swindling money and running a ruckus. There are 13 cases pending and CFA so far hasn't contested any of those. So the court has stopped them from functioning. If they think they have done the right thing, what is taking them so long to appeal in the court," the official said.

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