Two teams from Uttarakhand were disqualified from the Subroto Cup U-15 Football Championship without playing a single match after organizers found overaged players in their squads. The affected teams were Maharana Pratap Sports College (Dehradun) and Amenity School (Rudrapur).
The tournament was scheduled to begin on September 2 in Bengaluru. Ahead of the matches, organizers conducted medical tests, which revealed that players from 22 out of 35 teams across the country, including Uttarakhand, were above the age limit.
Teams from Manipur, Assam, Delhi, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Goa, Telangana, and even Sri Lanka were among those disqualified. Only 13 teams, including Chandigarh, CISCE, IPSC, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Nagaland, Bihar, NBS, West Bengal, and ISSO, will now compete.
The case of Maharana Pratap Sports College has drawn criticism, as it is run by the state government and admits players only after medical checks. Sports enthusiasts questioned the credibility of its admission process. Sports department officials stated that admissions are based on government-issued birth certificates from municipal authorities, which are legally valid. However, the Air Force’s medical verification in Bengaluru found four players from Maharana Pratap Sports College and five from Amenity School overaged.
