By all accounts, Saumyajit Basu, who covered the recently concluded Santosh trophy National football Championship for the Times of India ( Website ) is a Calcutta based reporter. By that account he ought to know that the propensity of crowd is directly proportional to bad refereeing, FIFA rules or otherwise. Yes, of course, the Calcutta police having more experience would resort to using mounted policeman on horses to lead lathi charges to restore order in the crowd unlike their Manipuri counterpart who would reach for his AK-47 and browning 9 M.M. pistol every time the crowd bellowed.

Basu was also at liberty to comment that even in the heart of Latin America where countries are known to have gone to war over a football match no gun totting policemen are seen on the football field as was seen at Khuman Lampak. However to charge the state and police of using terror tactics to force a replay and wrest the title is going beyond journalistic ethics. Basu had stopped just short of calling a Manipur a "Terrorist state".

Yes, the Manipuris are not that ignorant not to know that AIFF boss Priya Ranjan Dash Munshi is considered a top brass in the congress party, being its Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha, but to link his intervention as President of All India Football Federation with the survival of the congress led Ibobi Ministry is a far too fetched something not taught in the journalistic schools.

Will Basu link the recent outburst of Jyoti Basu against Budhadeva Bhattacharya, the Chief Minister of West Bengal as being direct fallout of the debacle of the Bengal team in the 58th Santosh trophy? Also, could it be that the recent defeat by the Indian Hockey team at the hands of the Pakistani side was due to the possible ISI infiltration in the Indian Hockey camp?

Goan coach Norbert Gonsalves (as in Anthony Gonsalves made famous in the film "Amar Akbar Anthony) knows the Manipuri footballers much better than the Manipuri coach as the Manipuri stars were playing for their home state for the first time, whereas they have been playing in Goa for years.

He would have known what lethal powers the Manipuri Player would be unleashing once their combination clicked and as a matter of fact appeared as was evident by the fact the replay was decided via the tie-breaker. But Gonsalves should have been honest enough to admit that the goal in the first match was an off-side and that too claimed it as a hard earned reward tantamount to a "Broad daylight robbery".

The crowd was not objecting the Goan play, they were simply unwilling to let an incompetent judge make unjustified ruling and get away with it. Former Indian Skipper and all that Roberto Fernandez (as in George Fernandez) knows very well that the FIFA rules don't allow referees to blow the goal line or the final whistle any time they please.

Besides the Times of India, there were other National Paper like the Statesman and The Telegraph, who had sent their men to sit through the tournament. Why is that they have not commented so or was it that Saumyajit Basu fell in love with the Goa 'Fenny', which is of inferior strength to "Sekmai Special" any day.

If so we prove it wrong. The AMFA failed on other fronts no doubt. They should not have raised the entry ticket to Rs 30 for the general stands. The rich could cough up to Rs 50 or 100 for the VIP gallery but the common men shouldn't have been targeted for revenue maximization. The empty stands were a loss for football.

True, The Times of India has the highest circulation in the World crossing over one crore of readership/circulation. It perhaps, sells less than one hundred in Manipur. Boycotting it here wouldn't make any dent in its functioning. But Samir Jain and Associates who owns Bennet Coleman and Co. that owns the Times of India ought to know that such a move has larger symbolic implications and one way the damage could be rectified would be by sacking Saumyajit Basu and a simple word "sorry".

For the moment Manipuri Team that won the 58th Santosh Trophy with a little more oiling can beat the rest of India any day. This is of course assuming that the Manipur team as of today is as good as Indian XI.