By Our Sports Reporter
IMPHAL, Dec 1 : Football Referees Welfare Committee Manipur has decided to abstain from refereeing tournaments organised under All Manipur Football Association (AMFA) from December 2 until further order.
The decision to stop refereeing in the AMFA organised tournaments came after AMFA's failure to come up with a positive response in connection with an incident during a match between KRYPHSA and MPSC in the 10th AMFA Senior Women Football League for BM Singh Trophy 2019 on October 18 at Football Turf Lamlong. The Football Referees Welfare Committee was demanding an appropriate action against the L Chaoba Devi, an executive council member of AMFA, for her unacceptable misconduct meted out to one referee N Ibungo. The committee was forced to reaffirm their resolution to discontinue of boycott any matches conducted or organised by AMFA, which taken during an emergency meeting on November 24, as the latter had failed to give a positive response till December 1.
While taking strong exceptions to the misconduct of L Chaoba Devi, Football Referees Welfare Committee highly condemned the allegations labelled against N Ibungo by All Manipur Football Association regarding a report submitted through match commissioner on October 19.
Football Referees Welfare Committee also pointed out that appropriate actions could have taken without referee's report as most of the members of AMFA executive council were present at the venue at the time of the incident. The committee also alleged that there was no security measure for safety of match officials and referees in place in the high tension match. Victimization of referees by team officials, players and even fans is no new things and it is highly unacceptable and can never be tolerated, the committee said.