India vs. Nepal in the semi-finals of the SAFF Women’s Championship turned into a drama-filled event as the game was stopped several times because of questionable calls, crowd trouble, and controversial judging decisions. The game was played in front of a stadium full of passionate home fans. There were two major delays that added up to more than 40 minutes of extra time.
During the first half, Nepalese fans got angry when an Indian player might have been given a penalty for handball but it wasn’t called. The crowd was angry about this decision, and things got worse in the second half when Nepali player Rekha Poudel got a second yellow card and was kicked out of the game.
Video replays showed that she had won the ball neatly with little contact, and many people thought that the yellow card was because she tried to score with her foot up. Fans got even more angry over this questionable call, and they stopped the game for 11 minutes while throwing bottles and other things onto the field.
Nepal’s players had to tell the crowd to calm down so that the game could continue, even though they only had 10 players left on the team. Tensions rose again in the 70th minute when Sangita Basfore scored for India, which made the players celebrate. But the judge suddenly told the game to go on before all of the Indian players were back on their side.
Nepal quickly scored after this, but the goal was ruled invalid because play hadn’t started up again yet. Both teams were very angry about this decision. India said the goal shouldn’t count because they weren’t in the right place, but Nepal said it should stand.
Already angry, the fans started throwing things again onto the field to protest. When the second break happened, it added another 28 minutes to the delay, which made both teams and fans very angry.
The game showed how important it is to communicate clearly and be a good referee, especially in games with a lot at stake where feelings and expectations are high. Since the game hasn’t started back up yet, there are still questions about the rules of the game, how to control the crowd, and how these breaks affected the result.