The I-League match featuring the two city giants Mohun Bagan and East Bengal has been postponed owing to the fragile political situation in the state.
The match was scheduled to be held on Sunday. According to a release from host Mohun Bagan, the police authority responsible for the security match advised of allowing a restricted number of spectators.
With the Kolkata Derby attracting more than 50,000 spectators on average, the Mohun Bagan management did not agree to the advice of restricting the number of fans and approached the organiser, All India Football Federation, seeking a fresh date. The new date will be announced later.
“After a detailed discussion, the Police Authorities informed us that the match should be organised on a limited scale and that sale of tickets should be restricted. Subsequently, we wrote to AIFF to apprise them of the situation and told them that the derby is the flagship match of the League.
“Football lovers look up to this match and to restrict this capacity would be to deprive the thousands of football crazy people from seeing the match. The AIFF taking stock of the situation and considering the importance of the Derby Match in the larger interest of the game have granted our request to postpone the match to a later date,” the Bagan release said.
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