Moving the goalpost

For every enthusiast in Kolkata, you’ll find a sceptic. For every silver lining, you’d get offered a crack of doom. When Atlético de Kolkata lifted the Indian Super League (ISL) trophy on December 20 last year, a bunch of armchair pundits instantly wondered — how will our local impecunious clubs withstand the onslaught of all this glitter? Football expert and commentator Novy Kapadia helped provide some comfort. “You see a sexy woman one night and fall in love with her by the morning. Football attachment doesn’t come that easily. Mohun Bagan and East Bengal still reign supreme. Their love for the game has survived decades. No ISL franchise can generate the kind of passion they do.” Though Kapadia does concede that the ISL gave Indian fans a rare chance to watch international stars like Alessandro Del Piero cross and dribble in the flesh, he insists that the league lacked a much-needed bite. “There was no fight. To watch true football rivalry, you’d have to be in the stands for a Mohun Bagan-East Bengal clash.”

The two football clubs revived their nearly century-old rivalry in an I-League derby encounter that was played in Kolkata on March 28. The presence of more than 50,000 fans in the stands at the city’s Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan (Salt Lake Stadium) tellingly surpassed the average of 45,171 seats that were occupied during Atlético de Kolkata’s home games. The keenly contested match justified the crowd’s frenzy. Mohun Bagan took the lead after a 47th-minute goal by striker Balwant Singh, and only with the help of some spirited saves by goalkeeper Debjit Majumder was the team in green-and-maroon finally able to defend their 1-0 scoresheet. Anjan Kumar Mitra, general secretary of Mohun Bagan Club, explains the hysteria that comes to surround the Kolkata derby. “Unlike the ISL where the entire crowd is backing a single team, supporters watching Mohun Bagan play East Bengal are split down the middle. We don’t need film stars to help fill our grounds. Our footballers are enough to do that.”

Not everyone, however, is in agreement with Mitra’s rhetoric. Anuj Kichlu, for instance, begins with a reference to dry numbers. He points out that India’s premier football competition, the I-League, comprises 11 teams and 350-odd players. “Of these, the hundred best footballers were chosen to play in the ISL. There were a dozen players picked from Mohun Bagan too. Though these footballers played in the same stadia, the facilities they were given — buses, changing rooms, even half-time drinks — were comparatively of a five-star standard.” CEO of football management firm The Football Edge, Kichlu adds he wasn’t surprised to see a significant improvement in the performance of some players. “Compared to the I-League, they had better coaches and better training. Some of that investment will get a few sizeable returns on the field.”

Having spoken to a handful of Indian players who were signed up for the ISL, Kapadia also echoes Kichlu. “The tournament,” he says, “was an eye-opener for many.” Problems with finances, bad management, lack of youth development, escalating costs — these, he says, are all issues East Bengal and Mohun Bagan will have to soon try and solve. Clubs like East Bengal are not entirely deaf to such concerns. Gautam Roy, the team’s media manager, is the first to admit that his club is often hindered by a “semi-professional” approach to the game. “Though the players are professional, the team’s media operations, its medical and support staff is not. Until East Bengal wakes up and makes its functioning fully professional, it will keep facing obstacles.”

According to Roy, newly-formed teams such as Pune and Bengaluru FC are already moving the goalposts for their Kolkata counterparts with a style of management that is more pragmatic. “These clubs could leave us behind in the not-too-distant future. If institutions like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal are to survive, they will have to find a way of attracting more corporate sponsors.”

New funds might possibly help compensate for the pinch of some old wounds. Last year, the Enforcement Directorate froze the bank accounts of both East Bengal and Mohun Bagan after it was found that the clubs had benefitted from sponsorship deals struck with the infamous Saradha Group. Utpal Kumar Ganguli, honorary secretary of the Indian Football Association (West Bengal), says, “The entire football fraternity is still in a state of shock, but this temporary setback has made everyone realise that we need to be more mindful and market ourselves better. The problem is one of immediate liquidity. The funds haven’t all dried up yet.”

Mitra of Mohun Bagan admits that his club is still plagued by myriad financial worries. When asked how his team still succeeded in leading this season’s I-League table, the general secretary laughed. “Sometimes even without a teacher, a student comes first in an examination. We might not have money, but the players are with us.”

Mitra, though, should not take the loyalty of his players for granted. In many a dressing room and dugout, one can now hear rumours of the I-League being merged with the ISL. Cyrus Confectioner, general manager of the Football Players Association of India, says, “That would certainly be the best step forward. Teams like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal would be forced to follow the ISL format and players would finally be given decent contracts. For Kolkata football, that’ll surely be a shot in the arm.”