Inter Kashi Awarded 3 Extra I-League Points as CAS Sides With Them, Overturns AIFF Appeals Committee's Decision

The I-League 2024-25 season officially ended a few months ago with Churchill Brothers crowned as the winners, but there has been suspense over the league's finish due to the fact that Inter Kashi filed a motion with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, or CAS for short, in which they seeked to be awarded 3 extra points due to a game which saw Namdhari FC field an ineligible player. And CAS have now ruled in their favour, as confirmed by Inter Kashi in a social media post. 

This means that Kashi are now the I-League champions not Churchill Brothers, a huge thing for the club that are still upstarts.  

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Why The Controversy? 

The issue stems from a typical bout of Indian football chaos that has become something of a norm in recent times for the sport in the country. 

Namdhari FC beat Inter Kashi 2-0 in an I-League match held in the end of January, but Kashi claimed with some merit that Namdhari had fielded an ineligible player and so the match should be considered a forfeit win for them in a complaint. 

Indeed, Namdhari fielded Brazilian Cledson Da Silva despite the fact that he should have been suspended due to having picked up 4 yellow cards and therefore accruing a one-match suspension in accordance with the league rules. 

The AIFF disciplinary committee agreed and awarded the match to Inter Kashi, but there was another twist in the tale as Namdhari appealed too. 

Their defence was that the AIFF's CMS portal did not show he was suspended and therefore he was fielded, which led the AIFF to stay the forfeiture decision. 

Instead, they said a decision would happen only after the season ended - and they sided with Namdhari, which forced Kashi to take the matter to CAS. 

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Sad End to Great Season

The fact that the fate of the title needed to be decided by an international arbitration court, however, pours water over what was a good season in India's second-division league. 

Up to four teams - Kashi, Churchill, Real Kashmir and Gokulam Kerala - were in the title fight at one point and it went down to the wire. 

But the farcical ineligible player situation led to the matter needing to be resolved swiftly behind doors, yet that did not happen either.