Bengaluru FC MALE CITY, Maldives: Fearing sanctions and a premature exit from the tournament, and banking on assurances provided by the Maldives National Defence Force, Bengaluru FC reached Male City on Sunday to play their Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup match against TC Sports Club Tuesday.
BFC made the journey despite the travel advisory issued by the external affairs ministry asking Indian citizens to defer their travel to the island nation, which has been in the state of emergency since February 5.
However, a Bengaluru FC official told Indian Express they went ahead with the trip only after the All India Football Federation (AIFF) received a go-ahead from the MEA on Sunday.
Earlier, in a letter to Srinivas Murthy, head of Operations, Bengaluru FC, MEA under-secretary (Maldives, Indian Ocean Region) Sushil Prasad wrote: “This is in reference to the newspaper article… in The Indian Express Delhi edition of today about the visit of Bengaluru FC to Male to play a match of Asian Football Confederation Cup against TC Sports Club of Male at National Stadium in Male on February 13, 2018… Since state of emergency imposed in Republic of Maldives since February 5, 2018, India has issued a travel advisory… advising Indian nationals to defer their trip to Maldives until further notice. Bengaluru FC is advised to adhere to it strictly and defer their proposed visit to Maldives.”
If Bengaluru had refused to travel, the issue would first have been presented to AFC’s relevant committees to decide whether to play the match at a later date or hand TC Sports Club a 3-0 win apart from sanctions, if any. There was also a possibility of the Maldivian club claiming compensatory damages.
“We wanted to avoid all the complications. But at the same time, the AFC and TC Sports Club had promised all support so the AIFF explained this to the MEA and got the necessary permissions,” a Bengaluru FC official said.
The team reached Male City on Sunday evening and had their official training session on Monday. The return leg of the tie will be played in Bengaluru on February 20, with the winner progressing to the AFC Cup group stage.
