The reigning Indian league champions, Aizawl FC, have threatened to go on hunger strike if they are denied an opportunity to defend their I-League title next season.<\/p>\n
A club statement even threatened to “fast unto death” if they are not reinstated.<\/p>\n
Last year, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) opted to introduce a new three-tier system for the 2017\/18 season, with Aizawl not part of the plans for the top division, which will be known as the Indian Super League (ISL).<\/p>\n
The statement from Aizawl read:<\/p>\n
“If no positive response is received from AIFF, the club will approach central sports minister, prime minister of India and also president of AFC.”<\/p>\n
“If these steps are failed, the club will have no other choice but will resort to worldwide protests, sitting demonstration near AFC\/FIFA offices, picketing of AIFF office, mass hunger strike\/fast unto death protest.”<\/p>\n
On Monday, Aizawl\u2019s owner, Robert Royte, admitted he expected the AIFF to include Aizawl in the ISL.<\/p>\n
“How can the reigning champions be relegated to second division? We will not accept it, no chance. We will be playing in the Asian competitions.”<\/p>\n
“How silly will it be if India’s champions are playing in Asia but, back home, they are not allowed to play in the main league?” Royte said.<\/p>\n
A senior AIFF official quoted by the Indian Express<\/em> said the matter would be discussed at a meeting on Saturday.<\/p>\n “Aizawl’s win has put the federation in a tight spot. Things should be clearer after Saturday\u2019s meeting. Until then, it\u2019s tough to speculate what will happen,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The reigning Indian league champions, Aizawl FC, have threatened to go on hunger strike if they are denied an opportunity to defend their I-League title next season. A club statement even threatened to “fast unto death” if they are not reinstated. Last year, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) opted to introduce a new three-tier system for the 2017\/18 season, with Aizawl not part of the plans for the top division, which will be known as the Indian Super League (ISL). The statement from Aizawl read: “If no positive response is received from AIFF, the club will approach central sports minister, prime minister of India and also president of AFC.” … Continue reading “Indian champions Aizawl FC threaten hunger strike”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}