Poor scheduling by MSSA leads to hour-long delays

Don Bosco coach Leslie Machado (right) gives his boys drinks

Akshay Jagtap

Poor scheduling by MSSA saw teams playing on the Cooperage synthetic turf under the scorching sun for their quarter-finals of the U-16 boys Div-I football tournament yesterday. MSSA had scheduled all four quarter-finals back-to-back with no time between the matches to accommodate a possible tie-breaker. So, when the first quarter-final between Bombay Scottish (Mahim) and Christ Church (Byculla) went into a tie-breaker, it threw the remainder of the schedule out of gear.

Don Bosco (Matunga), who were scheduled to play their quarter-final against St Pius X (Mulund) at 11am, saw their fixture delayed by an hour. And the last quarter-final between St Stanislaus and St Mary's ICSE (Mazagaon) began at 1.15pm - 75 minutes behind schedule. The delay particularly hurt Don Bosco, who were to play a District Sports Office U-17 semi-final at 1pm at Naigaon Police Ground in Parel. "We thought we'll finish our match here by 12pm and go to Parel for the DSO fixture but due to this delay, we couldn't. So, we had to request the DSO officials to adjust our match accordingly," Don Bosco's head coach Leslie Machado told mid-day yesterday.

MSSA football secretary Sebastian Fernandes blamed the referees for the delay. "The referees are taking too much time between games. I can't be after them all the time," he said. One of the referees however, blamed the tie-breaker for the delay. "One match went into the tie-breaker and that's what caused the delay. We are doing our job," said the referee.

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