Women's Asia Cup: AFC was not professional in maintaining bubble, our dream has been destroyed- India coach
India Today
Indian women's football team coach Thomas Dennerby on Wednesday squarely blamed the AFC for the COVID-19 outbreak that led to the country's ouster from the ongoing Asian Cup.
India women's football team coach Thomas Dennerby launched a scathing attack on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), saying in one way or another, the dreams of his side were destroyed.
Dennerby said India's dream of taking a shot at the FIFA World Cup was shattered not because of any fault of the players but due to the weak bio-bubble created by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
He said the AFC did not show any "respect, compassion, empathy" to the team to deal with the "extraordinary" situation in such a high-stake tournament.
"We were all negative about COVID when we reached the team hotel and after arrival tests. The first positive case came on the day we went out of the hotel for training and a day later (January 17), seven hotel staff tested positive. It is not rocket science to know how the outbreak came," he told PTI after a virtual media interaction.
"The tests of the hotel staff were done on January 17 and results of seven positive cases were known on Jan 18. But the information was given only on Jan 19 afternoon. What AFC was doing for the whole one day, we don't know.
"The hotel staff was tested for every six days and not every three days as done in case of teams, we don't know why," an angry Dennerby alleged.
India were forced out of the AFC Women's Asian Cup on Sunday after a dozen COVID-19 cases among their players led to the cancellation of a group match against Chinese Taipei minutes before kickoff here.
