In a big embarrassment, India's national broadcaster Doordarshan were denied to telecast the SAFF Under-15 Boys' Championships as their 20-odd member crew returned empty-handed all the way from Kalyani, about 60 kilometres from here.
According to a Doordarshan official in Kolkata, they had got a written permission from local hosts, Indian Football Federation (IFA), the West Bengal state body to telecast India's match against Sri Lanka deferred live on DD Sports.
"Accordingly, we did an inspection of Kalyani Stadium about a week back and got in touch with the venue co-ordinator there. Our New Delhi office also wanted to know about the logistics and we gave a go-ahead," the DD official told PTI.
"But today, when our team was installing the set-up the Match Commissioner stopped us. It's a big embarrassment to the national broadcaster. We recently telecast Durand Cup and also the Davis Cup which is an international tournament earlier this year. But we never faced such an issue."
"But that's it. DD Sports will not telecast the tournament after today's embarrassment."
"The local rights are with IFA. They had written to them but Doordarshan have not replied anything. Organisers, SAFF, are live streaming the matches (on mycuju.tv). They should have brought to their notice. The SAFF officials are here. They too were not aware, nor AIFF or IFA people."
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