A day after FIFA levelled a ban on All India Football Federation for 'third party intervention', women's team of Gokulam Kerala FC got stranded in the Uzbekistan after team was denied the participation to compete in the AFC Women's Club Championship.
The GKFC team was shunned from the championship shortly after FIFA slapped a ban on AIFF in the early hours of August 16th. SC's intervention in the form of its directive to appoint the Committee of Administrators (CoA) to run the AIFF was one of the prime reason FIFA took such a stern action against AIFF. The suspension meant no International football for India and that applies to all national teams, across all age groups.
The GKFC team raised their concern on Twitter and revealed their current situation and how the sudden turn of events has shattered their hopes to perform well in such a global tournament. In the Twitter post, GKFC posted a letter addressing the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Anurag Thakur, Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, and explaining the situation.
The letter mentioned that Gokulam Kerala women's team who are the champions of the Indian Women's League since 2019 earned direct qualification for the AFC Women's Club championship after winning the title last year.
"To take part in the prestigious AFC Women's Club Championship, we trained for 60 days since June 18th and reached Tashkent on August 16, 2022. The Asian Football Confederation sent a letter to the All India Football Federation on August 16, 2022 stating that our club is no longer eligible to take part in the AFC Women's Club competition 2022," read the letter.
The statement further informed that AIFF never sent any mail or letter to the club due to which women players consisting of 23 players with an average age of 21 got grounded at Tashkent. "The shocking development coupled with distress of not able to participate has left us disappointed both mentally and physically," the letter concluded.