Vishnu Prasad By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Indian football often throws up stories that are of the ‘believe it or not’ variety. The curious situation that V Soundararajan currently finds himself in, is a worthy addition to that illustrious list. Anybody trying to come up with an apt designation for Soundar will be a tad confused.

Is it ‘Chennai City FC coach’? Or is it ‘Southern Railways coach’? No one can say for sure, because Soundar is both. He manages Chennai City FC in the I-League. And when he is not doing that, he coaches Southern Railways in the Chennai Football Association’s (CFA) Senior Division league — a tournament that Chennai City participates in, helmed by Soundar’s assistant Anto Joseph.

A day in his life these days is complicated indeed. “Today (Thursday) morning, I had training with Chennai City,” says Soundar. “Then in the evening, I had to take training sessions for Southern Railways.”

To be fair to Soundar, it is not like he has much of a choice. His situation is the result of a game still stuck, at least at the lower levels, between the archaic world of semi-professional, departmental clubs and the modern professional era.

A railways employee, Soundar is obliged to take charge of their team in the CFA league. And he does it with the blessings of Chennai City.

“We treat the tournaments as separate,” Chennai City general secretary Vikram Murali says. “Soundar has limited say in who the club plays in the CFA league. He can suggest it to Anto, but in the end it will be Anto’s call. But of course, our priority is the I-League. We will not field players in the CFA league at the risk of harming our I-League prospects.”

Soundar also says he will sit out Southern Railways’ match against Chennai City. “I have already communicated this to my superiors,” he says.

But that doesn’t stop the whole scenario from screaming ‘conflict of interest’. In their CFA league opener, no less than five of Chennai City’s I-League players were on the pitch.

The argument of the authorities is that the team’s preparation for the local league doesn’t interfere with its I-League programe. In a world where a cricket selector had to resign because his son was up for selection, is the reasoning that both teams trust Soundar’s integrity enough to fend off the ‘C’ word?

For their part, league officials are non-committal on the issue. “We are still looking at the situation,” says CFA secretary E Sugumaran. “We are still looking at the rules pertaining to this and will take a decision soon.”

vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com