East Bengal withdraw

MUMBAI, Nov 24: East Bengal, one of the Calcutta giants has withdrawn from the ongoing Bristol Rovers Cup, according to Wali Mohammad, secretary WIFA. He received a fax message around 4.00 p.m. where the Calcutta team has shown their disability to participate. The reason club has mentioned in the message says, eight of their players are with the national team preparation and two Ghanian imports got themselves injured during the final of IFA Shield final on Monday.

East Bengal, the only Calcutta team in Rovers Cup, was placed in Group A along with Air-India and Goan League champion — Salgaokar. The Calcutta outfit was scheduled to play their first match on November 28.

The Rovers Cup organising committee has decided to replace East Bengal with the Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) as they finished third in the eight team pre-quarter-final matches which concluded on Monday.