AFC General Secretary denies "Telegraph" India quotes

A big point of discussion in the Main Media Centre amongst the journalists at the 2011 AFC Asian Cup today were statements from AFC General Secretary Alex Soosay about Team India and their coach Bob Houghton which were published in today's The Telegraph (Kolkata, India).

The article mentioned that Alex Soosay was not at all happy with India's performance at the Asian Cup and that Bob Houghton should be replaced with the AFC recommending the name of French coach Philippe Trousier as his replacement

The AFC reacted to these quotes from AFC General Secretary Mr Alex Soosay on The Telegraph article:

Nobody from The Telegraph made any attempt to contact me or my office to verify the quotes and find out if I had indeed made all those comments, the correspondent has attributed to his sources.

I refute all the conjectures freely drawn upon in the article. AFC never interferes in the internal working, particularly the appointment of technical staff, including coaches, of its Member Associations. In my several private meetings with the AIFF officials, I never sought to advise them on coaching matters.

In fact, I would like to commend the Indian team for the way they played here in Doha. Nobody disputes the fact that the Indian team has a long way to go but they did show what they are capable of here in the AFC Asian Cup.