ISL players don pollution masks in Delhi; Steve Coppell rues nothing has changed

Sports matches should never have taken place in New Delhi in the first place, post Diwali 2017. After some Sri Lanka and India cricket team players vomitted and were attended by medical personnel, footballers playing in the Indian Super League (ISL) had no option but to wear masks while training.

What a mess it has been so far!

Javier Ceppi, the tournament director of the recently-concluded FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017, shared a very important tweet that has now gone absolutely viral. "You can't host sport events in Delhi from Diwali till end of February, at least. It is a fact.

"We had to accommodate our whole schedule [of the U-17 World Cup] to avoid it and others should also think about athletes' health first," wrote the Chilean.

Even former Kerala Blasters coach Steve Coppell, who is in charge of Jamshedpur FC this season in the ISL, puts forward the same question: Why? "Around Diwali last year I came to Delhi with the Kerala Blasters team," said Coppell, whose team takes on Delhi Dynamos in the ISL this Wednesday.

"When we played last year, at that time the measure (level) of particulate matters was over 500. I think it's 300 today.

"For the last three years I have been in Delhi at this time and there has been the exactly same commentary about doing something but nothing has happened," the Englishman added to the Times of India.