The footballing landscape of the country is going to undergo a drastic change, as the ISL and the I-League are moving towards a merger to bring about one comprehensive football league in the country.
Mohun Bagan, arguably the most celebrated club in Indian football has refused to submit the bid documents in order to get inducted into the ISL, unless all their demands are met.
The Mohun Bagan secretary, Anjan Mitra, took a dig at the Football Sports Development Limited, a subsidiary of IMG-Reliance, saying that if the constitution of a country can be amended several times, a few rules of an organisation can always been tweaked.
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“The Indian constitution has been amended many times after its formation, and similarly here, the dates for a private organisation can also be changed”
“We did not want to give any scope to IMG-R who cannot deny that we have not bought the documents. The date of submission of the bid documents is not a factor to us,”
East Bengal too have refused to submit the bid documents and have received great support from their Chief Minister, Mamta Banerjee who supports East Bengal’s and Mohun Bagan’s demands of wavering off the 15 crore franchise fee.
“We are extremely grateful to the chief minister. We have already sent her a letter to show our gratitude”
“Apart from this we also need the money of the central pool and would like to play the tournament in Kolkata. These three demands have been brought up in our executive meeting today (Wednesday) and has been agreed by all the officials of the club.”
The finance secretary, Debasish Dutta didn’t hold back as well, saying that a revolt has started in the whole of Bengal, and the clubs won’t give into the demands of the ISL.
“The revolt has already started and would spread all over Bengal. We would like to see how well the tournament progresses if the two most popular teams of the state, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, are not allowed to participate.”
