Mohammedan, Abahani players brawl as hockey league ends in chaos

The high-stakes match between Mohammedan and Abahani ended in chaos as table-leaders Mohammedan refused to field their players for the last 18 minutes of the match despite leading 3-2 following a brawl between both teams, which cost the Black and Whites a chance to lift the Green Delta Insurance Premier Division Hockey League title at the Maulana Bhasani Hockey Stadium today.

Umpires Hossain Al Hossani from Oman and Dayan Disanayake from Sri Lanka waited for Mohammedan players to return, but once it was clear that they had no intention to resume the match, the umpires declared Abahani the winners by a 5-0 margin according to the tournament bylaws.

With this outcome, the Sky Blues equalled Dhaka Mariner Youngs Club with 37 points from 15 matches each and set up a play-off clash to decide the title, according to the bylaws.

Mohammedan, who had 35 points from 14 matches, needed an outright victory over Abahani to regain the title. They came from two goals down to take a 3-2 lead thanks to a treble from Malaysia's Faizal Bin Sarri, who raised his goal tally to 25 from 10 matches.

But the players from the Black and Whites then got entangled in a bloody scuffle with the Abahani players despite the Omani umpire whistling in favour of Mohammedan in Mohammedan's box following an Abahani penalty-corner attempt in the 42nd minute.

The chaos started from an altercation between Abahani's Indian forward Affan Yousuf and Mohammedan's Malaysian defender Zul Pidaus Bin Mizun in a bid to take control of a dead ball.

The on-field players from both sides got involved in the scuffle and the players from the Mohammedan tent also took part in the scrap that caused Mohammedan's Din Islam Emon to suffer a head injury.

Umpire Hossani sent off Abahani's Nayeem Uddin and Mohammedan SC's Emon and Tanvir Rahman Siam while Affan and Mizun were shown yellow cards.

Mohammedan officials demanded a video referral for the decision about the cards, however, the umpires were determined not to take the video referral and waited 10 minutes for the Mohammedan players to return to the field to resume the play.

But when Mohammedan refused to restart the match, the umpires blew the final whistle and declared Abahani the winners.

"They [Abahani] fought with us and Emon got injured but two of our players were sent off and one player was given a yellow card. But only one Abahani player was sent off and one was given a yellow card. Of our three players, one player was the main defender and two were on-field players, this was all planned. Was it even possible for us to play the match with seven players," questioned Mohammedan SC manager Ariful Haque Prince.

Prince also added that the same Omani umpire had shown their best player Rasel Mahmud Jimmy a yellow card in their previous match which kept him from taking part against Abahani.

Mohammedan had earlier threatened to not take part in the match at all if the suspension against Jimmy wasn't overturned, but turned up for the match eventually.

"We requested the umpires to take video referral before taking the final decision of the suspensions but the umpires did not pay heed to our request," Prince said. "There has also been an instance of refusal of play in the match between Ajax SC and Bangladesh SC in the first-phase. We are yet to know the umpire's report and don't know the fate of that match."

Bangladesh Hockey Federation general secretary AKM Mominul Haque Sayeed said that Abahani were declared winners after Mohammedan SC refused to play.

"The umpires took the decision after using his own video referral, so they didn't need to accept Mohammedan's appeal of reviewing the decision. During the match between Ajax and Bangladesh SC, no teams refused to play the match, rather we stopped the match on technical grounds due to the shortage of lights. But today's incident was bloody and the umpires can take the decision according to the bylaws."

Sayeed also informed that they would soon issue letters to the top two teams – Dhaka Mariner Youngs Club and Abahani – to inform them the date for the play-off match to decide who would win the championship.