Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
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Only last week, the two season long relationship between East Bengal Club and Shree Cement ended on a sour note with Shree Cement returning the sporting rights to the club.
Shree Cement explained the step in a press release, “Shree Cement Limited (SCL) has now decided to terminate its sporting collaboration… Pursuant to the termination the Club shall transfer its entire shares held in SCEBF (SC East Bengal Foundation) at book value to SCL and simultaneously SCEBF also agrees to handover all the sporting rights to the club…,” Shree Cement said in a letter addressed to the East Bengal Club president on Tuesday, April 12 while ending its ‘obligations’ towards the club with immediate effect.”
“They (East Bengal club) did not sign the final agreement as per the initial term sheet. Hence the association had to be finally ended after two seasons,” said the SC East Bengal CEO Shibaji Samaddar.
The question on the mind of all East Bengal fans is, will the club play the 2022/23 Indian Super League and find a suitable partner and/or sponsor with whom the club can have a long and successful partnership.
And the answer is, one does not know despite East Bengal Club official Debabrata ‘Nitu’ Sarkar saying on April 15, the Day of Bengali New Year on the side-lines of the Bar Pujo festivities at the club’s Maidan premises, “We are confident of announcing our decision in the next 15 days or so. We’ll definitely play in ISL. Other than ISL, we’ll look to play in all tournaments possible.”
Talks have been held with Bangladeshi conglomerate Bashundhara Group, who own football clubs Bashundhara Kings and Sheikh Russel, but it is a difficult coming together due to the cross-border politics involved in getting a deal cleared by both governments in India and Bangladesh with also West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee having played a role in the past for Shree Cement to come on board.
If one reads the above, one feels, where are the good old days of Kingfisher East Bengal gone, when the red-and-gold not only won the National Football League title three times but also the 2003 ASEAN Club Championship in Jakarta or reached the semifinals of the 2013 AFC Cup with the financial support of the Vijay Mallya owned beer brand. Those days seem so far away after the last few years with first partnering Quess Corps and then Shree Cements, which has brought a lot of misery to the millions of fans of this historic club.
The next choice of a partner and/or sponsor will decide the future of the club, then Indian club football is moving ahead through the Indian Super League, where the financial strength and professionalism decides if a club can compete for titles or finish bottom of the table like SC East Bengal did in ISL-8. The good in this difficult situation is that there currently is no relegation from the ISL, but that is set to change in the coming years.
Just finding a partner who will pay for everything in the last second doesn’t work in modern football. The last two seasons have shown that somehow putting a squad together to play the ISL does not work. A club needs to plan for the next three to five years, have a long-term vision for youth and infrastructure development, a plan for recruitment of players and a philosophy under which coaches would work at the club besides looking at marketing the club.
All the above currently does not exist at East Bengal Club, then the club just tries to survive and play in the top tier every season. For the glory of the past to return, all these things need to be implemented with a professional club management and an investor working hand in hand to take the club forward.
But the question remains, Has East Bengal Club learned its lessons to find the right partner to bring back success?
