T-Team player: It was safe to play on

JOHOR BARU: A T-Team player has come forward to say that his team’s safety was not compromised and felt that there was no need to stop play during T-Team’s FA Cup second-round clash against Johor Darul Takzim (JDT) last Saturday.

Defender Muhd Irfan Abdul Ghani said that his assistant coach Azlan Johar was the one who had determined that it was unsafe to play on and called for the team to pack up and abandon the second half of the match at the Larkin Stadium after a JDT top official allegedly assaulted a T-Team player and the team’s fitness coach.

JDT was leading the match 2-1 at half-time.

Muhd Irfan, who said he was standing behind his Brazilian striker teammate Evaldo Goncalves throughout the incident, claims that nobody was hurt in the episode and did not notice Goncalves’ nose bleeding in the changing room as reported.

“Many of my teammates felt that we could have played on and I personally feel that our safety was not compromised. There were many security personnel on duty at the time,” he said in a press conference here Wednesday.

It has been reported that the two teams were in the Larkin Stadium tunnel at half-time when the incident occurred.

Play was stopped when T-Team refused to come out for the second half.

Reports have stated that Goncalves was punched in the nose by a top official from JDT while fitness coach Stefano Impagliazzo was kicked in the groin.