Thailand coach keeping quiet over walkout
SINGAPORE, January 31 (Asean Football Championship) - Thailand
coach Chanvit Polochivin refused to comment on his team's
controversial walkout on Wednesday after they went down 2-1 to
Singapore in the first leg of the Asean Football Championship
final.
The Thais walked off the pitch in the 82nd minute, protesting the
decision of Malaysian referee C.Ravichandran to award a penalty to
the defending champions after Noh Alam Shah went down in the box
under challenge from Niweat Siriwong.
They remained off the field for 15 minutes until team manager
Thavatchai Sajakul intervened and convinced the team to continue
playing.
Mustafic Fahruddin promptly dispatched the spot kick to hand the
Thais their first defeat against Singapore in a competitive
international for 30 years.
Chanvit showed up for the post-match press conference but remained
for only 10 seconds, saying: 'Our comment today is that we have no
comment. You can see everything that happened on the field, so we
have no comment today.'
Team manager Thavatchai later said that he would be lodging a
protest with the Asean Football Federation, declaring that the
incident had not been instigated by his own team.
Local organising committee chairman Mohammed Muzzammil said that
the AFF will be investigating the matter before commenting
further.
'We will wait for the match commissioner to submit his report,' he
said. 'The AFF will then discuss the matter before determining if
any further action should be taken.'
While the Thais were up in arms over Ravichandran's decision,
Singapore coach Radojko Avramovic felt that his side deserved the
victory on merit.
'A win is a win and I felt that we fully deserved our victory
tonight,' said the Serbian.
'We got a great first goal from Noh Alam Shah and the penalty I
felt was a punishment for the Thais because they were using their
hands all the time during the game.
'I didn't see the incident clearly but they were using their hands
all the time to pull back our players. There was even an incident
earlier in the second half when Alam Shah was pulled back which
should have been a penalty.
'But I felt that our players did really well tonight.
Congratulations to them and the people who came out to support
us.'
Avramovic was far from pleased with the Thai reaction to the
penalty decision.
'I think it was a joke,' he said. 'I just told my players to keep
their focus and keep themselves ready because I felt sure they
would come back.'
A fiery atmosphere can be expected from the Thai fans in Bangkok on
Sunday evening when Singapore will look to defend their lead in the
second leg but Avramovic does not believe that the situation will
get to his charges.
'I think for me, this is sport and there are 11 players on each
side who will play the game. Whatever happens on the terrace is
something for somebody else to control,' he said.
'Our players have already played a few games in those sorts of
surrounding so I don't expect that it will be a big thing for
them.'
