Kolhapur football team members thrash Nagpur athlete

NAGPUR: The second and final day of the State-level Subroto Mukherjee Football tournament was marred by controversy when national-level Nagpur athlete Dinkar Wasave, who was working as a ball boy, was thrashed black and blue by Kolhapur coaches and players at the Nagpur University ground on Monday.
A silver-medal winner of the recently held Maharashtra State Junior Athletics meet in Pune, Wasave had an altercation with a Kolhapur player Akshay Mode when the former was passing the ball from the sidelines.
The argument turned ugly when coach and manager of the Kolhapur-based Maharashtra Vidyalaya, Pradeep Salunke and Shivaji Patil, joined them and instead of solving the issue started beating Wasave.
After being brought down by the trio, Wasave was the target of almost all Kolhapur players (both U-17 and U-14) who with their football shoes went on kicking the Krida Prabodhini athlete all over.
On-field referees came to Wasave's rescue but Kolhapur squad were at their aggressive best. After a call was made to the police control room, two bike-born Charlie reached the spot and asked the involved players and officials to accompany them to Ambazari police station.
Confirming the incident with TOI, Ambazari station PSI Tripathi said, "A complaint was noted but since District Sports Officer Vijay Santan and Kolhapur coach assured to solve the issue amicably we have not registered any FIR but warned the players not to involve in any such fight in future."
Officials of other participating teams, however, blamed Salunke, who had been involved in similar fighting incidents on earlier occasions too.
Taking serious cognizance of the matter DSO Santan said, "I have filed a complaint with Ambazari police station and will take strict action against Maharashtra Vidyalaya. We have not given them any certificates of this tournament and will recommend a three-year ban for indiscipline."
Kolhapur coach Salunke, however, made a counter allegation saying, "The ball boy (Wasave) humiliated members of our U-14 team and even slapped and kicked one player. Since these kids are our responsibility, I rushed to interfere but he too misbehaved with me which provoked our players. I somehow managed to pacify the matter and now waiting for the DSO to take the requisite action."
Wasave was treated at the Ravi Nagar-based Sengupta hospital and has a severe back injury along with swelling all over his face.