The Sports Ministry on Saturday informed the Gokulam Kerala FC
The Sports Ministry on Saturday informed the Gokulam Kerala FC to return from Uzbekistan as they won’t be able to participate in the AFC Women’s Club Championship due to AIFF’s suspension.
The world football governing body FIFA had suspended India for “undue influence from third parties” and said the U-17 Women’s World Cup “cannot currently be held in India as planned”
The women’s team was scheduled to compete against a team from Iran on August 23 and one from the host nation on August 26 in Qarshi, while ATK Mohun Bagan is slated to play the AFC Cup 2022 (Inter-Zone semifinals) on September 7 in Bahrain.
Desperate for a solution, the Gokulam Kerala team management reached out to the sports ministry on Wednesday afternoon, seeking their intervention.
On Friday, the ministry wrote an email to FIFA and AFC, apprising them of the fact that Gokulam Kerala was already in Uzbekistan when FIFA’s suspension of AIFF was announced.
It has requested FIFA and AFC to therefore consider allowing the team to play in the AFC Women’s Club Championship (West region) in the interest of the young players,” the Ministry had said in a release.
Stranded in Uzbekistan, Gokulam Kerala had requested the prime minister to help. Gokulam, Kerala, had stated on Twitter, a letter addressed to the prime minister.
23 women’s team players of Gokulam Kerala Fc are stranded at Tashkent now for no fault of ours.
Gokulam Kerala FC Women
Gokulam Kerala FC Women is an Indian women’s football section of Gokulam Kerala FC, based in Calicut, Kerala. They participate in the Indian Women’s League, the women’s premier football league in India.
They won the first IWL in 2019–20. They then retained the title in 2021–22. In 2021, they became the first club to represent India in the AFC Women’s Club Championship.
AFC Women’s Club Championship
The winner of the 2020–21 Indian Women’s League season would originally get the chance to participate in the 2021 edition of the AFC Women’s Club Championship.
As a backup, if the season is unable to be complete, defending champions of the 2019–20 season, Gokulam Kerala FC, will qualify for the event. Later, on July 15, 2021, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) nominated Gokulam Kerala to represent India in the AFC Women’s Club Championship 2020–21 pilot tournament.Â
Gokulam Kerala FC embarrassed Kenkre FC 10-1 in their Indian Women’s League football fixture on Tuesday.
Gokulam’s Nepali striker, Sabita Bhandari, was the star of the show with five goals. Karishma Shirvoikar notched up a hat-trick, while Manisha netted two more to complete the rout.
Kenkre couldn’t get any foothold in the game as their Kerala counterparts completely blew them away and raced to a 7-1 lead going into halftime.
Gokulam opened the scoring in the 7th minute when a Sabitra Bhandari effort was initially saved by Kenkre keeper Monika Devi, but the rebound fell to Karishma, who made no mistake.
Bhandari continued to be the fulcrum of Gokulam’s attack, running circles around the Kenkre defence as they failed to find an answer. She linked up beautifully with Karishma throughout the game, forging a formidable partnership and scoring an astounding eight goals between them.
Just like she had created Karishma’s opener, the young forward returned the favour by setting her up minutes later, in the 17th minute.
The goal of the game was scored by Manisha in the 30th minute when her left-footed curler left everyone astounded.
Bhandari completed her hat-trick in first-half stoppage time and added a further two in the second half. The Nepal international narrowly missed out on a double hat-trick, but beautifully set up Karishma for her to wrap up her three-goal haul.
