Women’s under-17 assistant football coach Alex Ambrose sacked for alleged sexual misconduct

Former India international Alex Ambrose who has been charged with allegations of sexual misconduct was sacked from his position as assistant coach of the Indian Under-17 women’s football team.  The allegations were labelled by an unnamed player of the youth team during the squad’s preparation stint in Italy and Norway for the upcoming Under-17 World Cup which will be played in India in October across three different venues namely Bhubaneshwar, Margao & Navi Mumbai. 

Ambrose who plied his trade in the I-League for Mumbai FC who returned to India midway through the preparatory camp on AIFF’s diktat was placed under provisional suspension by the governing body of football in India. 

Without naming the coach, AIFF Acknowledged the incident and made it public through a media release. While the governing body of football in the country refrained from revealing the identity of the player, speculations were ripe and the murmurs grew loud that the unnamed person was indeed Ambrose.

  “An event of misconduct has been reported in the U-17 women’s team, currently on an exposure tour to Europe. The AIFF follows a zero-tolerance policy on indiscipline. As an initial action, the Federation has provisionally suspended the individual pending further investigation,” the statement read. But now as it stands, he has been sacked by the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Arbitrators (COA) tasked with running the daily affairs of AIFF till the federation conducts fresh elections and elect new office bearers. COA had earlier placed him under provisional suspension. 

“Alex Ambrose, Assistant head coach of Under 17 women’s team has been sacked for sexual misconduct. Further action under process,” Dr. S.Y Quraishi, a key member of the COA said on microblogging site Twitter.

Talking to the Daily Guardian, Dr Quraishi said that apart from the disciplinary action, legal action will also be taken against Ambrose. “Yes, definitely we will be taking legal action against him. We are still in the process of finalising the process and understanding the pros and cons of the situation. Once we have ironed few things, that is by tonight or tomorrow morning we will soon be filing an FIR with the police,” Dr. Quraishi told this newspaper over telephone.

Talking about the internal committee which will be conducting a probe on it own as well, the former Chief Election Commissioner of India said, “We already have a committee in place and have requested some other expert as well to join us on this as it will make the committee more strong.”

When quizzed if any special counselling session has been arranged for the members of the squad as the incident could be harrowing for them, Dr. Quraishi said, “No we have not done that yet. The players are still training abroad and once they are back, we will have a proper and thorough discussion with the players.”

The trouble for Ambrose meanwhile does not end here as the All India Federation of Coaches has decided to strip him of core team membership and all associated posts. 

“In light of the recent condemnable incident that happened in the IndiaU-17 Women›s National Team, The Association of Indian Football Coaches (AIFC)has come to a unanimous decision to strip Alex Ambrose of the core team membership and all associated posts,” AIFC announced through a social media statement.

The Members Associations (AIFF) also took condemned the incident and has requested the COA and AIFF administrators to conduct an independent inquiry as well file an FIR.

“State associations would like to recommend stringent action including legal and exemplary punishment with a life ban from football and even cancelling his coaching licenses,” Members Associations’ said in a statement.