CHANDIGARH: Two more players have complained to the All-India Football Federation (AIFF) against Minerva Punjab Football Club.
N Givson Singh and Vikram Singh have alleged that they were being shown as part of Minerva based on the basis of “forged documents”. AIFF’s player status committee (PSC) has forwarded these complaints to the disciplinary committee.
“A couple of matters have been forwarded to the disciplinary committee, especially the issue regarding the alleged forgery of the players’ contract,” AIFF general secretary Kushal Das told The Tribune. “The two players have claimed that they have not signed contracts with Minerva.”
This is not the first time when a player has complained against Minerva. The club has been reported to PSC in the past for a range of issues, that included non-issuance of a no-objection certificate and non-payment of players’ salaries.
Arnab Das Sharma, Germanpreet Singh, Victor Amobi, Amarjeet Mishra, Shubham Sarangi and Ravi Kumar are among the players who have registered their complaints against Minerva, Tribune reports.
Minerva owner Ranjit Bajaj defended the club, saying that this current state of “confusion” over the players’ contracts was the fault of AIFF.
“It is a conflict of interest on part of AIFF. First they take my players on the pretext of national duty and then they sign them for their own academy! The current complaint takes the number to 11 players we have lost to AIFF in this manner,” Bajaj told the daily.
“Unfortunately, we cannot do much in this matter,” he added. “Our contract with AIFF clearly states that if we go to court, they will throw us out of I-League. There is no way forward in this arbitrary manner in which AIFF keeps on poaching our players.”
Bajaj said he could have lost all four of the Minerva players who were part of the India U-17 World Cup too. Jeakson Singh, who scored the only goal for the country in the tournament, Anwar Ali, Shahjahan Anwar and Nongdamba Naorem were the four Minerva players who made it to the Indian U-17 squad.
“I refused to let them go till the time I got a letter from AIFF saying they were my players and will be returned to us after the World Cup,” he said. “AIFF would have taken them too. AIFF changed the rule while they had our players. We couldn’t get their parents to sign a contract with us and now all these issues are cropping up.”
