Inter-departmental soccer in South enters knockout stage

IN ONE MATCH, BOTH TEAMS GET KNOCKED OUT!
Namchi, 31 July: The ongoing Inter-Department League Football Tournament has reached the knockout stage with eight departments left in the fray. The tournament, organised by the South District Government Driver Association (SDGDA), had begun with 12 government department in competition.
The 12 teams were divided into three pools with Sports & Youth Affairs Department topping Group A, followed by Buildings & Housing and DAC/LR. In Group B, Health Department emerged on top followed by Agriculture/ Horticulture on second place and in Group C, HRD Department held first place followed by Roads & Bridges and RMDD.
Four departments- UD&HD, Forest, PHE and Power Department are out of the tourney.
Today, two quarterfinal matches were played with the first match played between Health Department and RMDD. Health Department, which had emerged undefeated from Group-B was knocked out 3-1 by RMDD.
The second match threw up an interesting result in that Roads & Bridges Department and Buildings & Housing Deptt both knocked each other out. After Buildings & Housing ended the first half 2-0 ahead, Roads & Bridges Deptt complained to the match referee that it had fielded players who were not working in the Department. As the organizing committee soon found out, both teams had in fact fielded non-departmental players against standing rules that teams could field only employees of the respective departments posted in South District. Eventually, both teams were disqualified.
The NLA principal Lopzang Lama was the chief guest of the day accompanied by president SDGDA Denzong Tamang, department officers and other members of the association.