Shillong, Mar 7: Second Division club Ryntih will be in the Shillong Premier League 2019 after winning a spot through auction, it was revealed today.
The Shillong Sports Association held a public auction through the closed bid offer system to allocate the place. The last date to submit offers was 25th February.
The auction was necessitated by Shillong United’s pulling out of football in 2018 prior to the SPL. The SSA had tried to auction the vacant spot last year only around six weeks before the SPL began and it proved to be unsuccessful.
Ryntih, who were founded in 1998, are based out of Mawlai Mawdatbaki and only yesterday won the Rani Motors Knockout Football Tournament in Laitkseh by defeating Laban 3-0 in the final. They are believed to have bid around Rs 6 lakh for the SPL spot, though TSR can’t confirm this.
That champion team had plenty of top players borrowed from other clubs, so it will be interesting to see what steps they take to strengthen their squad for the top Shillong division in the transfer window.
Direct entry teams have not done so well in Shillong before – think of Rising FC (relegated from the First Division after their debut season in 2016) and Smit (finished in the bottom two of the First Division but exempted from relegation in 2018).
