Mohammedan Sporting Secretary accuses CFL referee of being biased in their previous fixture

The official turned down a penalty shout after an opposition defender committed handball inside the box.

Mohammedan Sporting Club Football Secretary Sharique Ahmed accused referee Pranjal Banerjee of being biased after they suffered a shock defeat to Peerless SC last evening. Anthony Wolfe’s 20th-minute goal handed the Black Panthers their second loss of the Calcutta Premier Division ‘A’ campaign at Mohammedan Sporting ground.

Ahmed has since stated that he did not feel the game was officiated fairly, suggesting that the referee favoured Peerless. "The referee was an embarrassment. I have to say this, the referee made it enormously difficult for the players to play properly," he said, making reference to the stop-start nature of the clash, where Banerjee went instinctively to his whistle whenever there was a slight contact.

"A good game is when the game ends and you don’t even know who the referee was. I think if more referees knew that‚ we would probably have better football," he continued. He was frustrated with Banerjee, who turned down a penalty shout after a Peerless defender committed handball inside the box which was visible to all but Banerjee.

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"Was it a handball? Yes. Wast it a penalty? Yes. I saw the replay over and over again. Everyone would agree that it was a penalty, but that’s not important. All that is important is what the three or four gentlemen with the whistles think. We never got any decisions for us. We have no problem with the result because Peerless were the better side. All I want Mohammedan Sporting Club to be refereed fairly and I didn’t think we were refereed fairly," he added.

“We have filed an official complaint to the India Football Association (IFA) and Calcutta Referee’s Association (CRA), and we really hope this type of instances won’t be repeated in the future because rest of the country follows CFL with a lot of anticipation and when they see officiating like last evening, they laugh at Kolkata football,” Ahmed concluded.