Heavy rain and lightning washes out Mohun Bagan vs Aryan match

HEAVY RAIN AND LIGHTNINGS caused the Calcutta Football League encounter between Mohun Bagan and Aryan to be postponed today. Heavy dark clouds had been hanging over the Barasat stadium all day, causing the afternoon fixture to kick-off under floodlights.

Shortly after the match began, a drizzle started which steadily grew in intensity until heavy rain was absolutely drenching every inch of the artificial. Even though all the lights were on, the rain still started causing visibility problems after a while.

Even though the artificial turf of Barasat was specially equipped for fast drainage, water started clogging the sidelines making things difficult for coaches, assistant referees and players on the reserve bench. 

But the referees ultimately had to halt the match as lightnings grew more and more frequent. But as the players and spectators patiently waited for the rain to let up, it became even heavier and showed no sign of stopping any time soon. 

After waiting for nearly half an hour the referees walked back out and inspected the pitch. After that they had a discussion with the teams with the teams and mutually agreed to postpone the match, around 4:20 pm. 

This is not the first time a match has been abandoned due to rain during this season's CFL. The main reason to move the matches to Barasat from the Maidan area was to avoid such rain-forced postponements. While usually the Barasat stadium has a good track record of weathering it out in heavy rain, today's downpour was exceptional. And under FIFA rules matches should not continue when lightnings are on. 

This match, and others similarly postponed, will be re-played later. At this point IFA will be hoping that the number of abandoned games does not go up, because it will then prolong the CFL season and get it too close to the start of the ISL. With many of the East Bengal and Mohun Bagan players due to join their ISL franchises after the Kolkata Derby, it does not bode well for them to play more matches with an even depleted squad, with reserve and junior players making up the majority of their starting line-ups.