#TFGtake - East Bengal, Mohun Bagan & WB govt are playing three-dimensional chess with IMG-Reliance
A CHAIN OF EVENTS with high drama unfolded in Kolkata today as East Bengal and Mohun Bagan club officials ran around organizing meetings with club committees and state government ministers, and yet did not produce a final decision on whether or not they will submit their bids to play in the ISL after all.
Although the clubs appear more willing than before, as Mohun Bagan have decided to pick up the ISL bid documents. Both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal will decide whether or not they will submit their bids tomorrow, and then do the actual submission on 25th May if they decide to do so.
The day began with East Bengal and Mohun Bagan officials meeting West Bengal government's sports minister Arup Biswas. During the meeting, he got a call from chief minister Mamata Banerjee and everyone proceeded to Nabanna to meet with the CM herself.
Both the sports minister and the chief minister declared their vehement support for the Kolkata clubs. They backed EB and MB's demands of getting their ISL franchise fees waived, and the right to play from their home city Kolkata which under current ISL contracts is an exclusive domain for Atletico de Kolkata for 2 more seasons.
The chief minister told the clubs that they must not "bow down" and allow AIFF/IMG-R to "dishonour" the century old footballing institutions. They also reassured the club officials that the government would support them in every way to make sure they play their home matches in Kolkata's Salt Lake Stadium.
Buoyed by her assurances, the two clubs held executive committee meetings discussing the details of the meetings with the ministers with the clubs' top members to come up with a plan of action. They decided, in the end, that Mohun Bagan would pick up the bid document on 24th, and decide whether or not they would submit it at an executive committee meeting scheduled for 1 pm.
This is the meeting where potential sponsorship deals and final decisions regarding the franchise fee matter is expected to be taken. East Bengal and Mohun Bagan will either both submit their bids or neither will do it.
The clubs are still sticking to their demands and IMG-Reliance has not yet shown any sign of budging from the original set of terms specified in the ISL bid documents.
To leave room for future maneuvre, it may come to pass that East Bengal submit the bid with Siliguri as their home ground and Mohun Bagan choose Durgapur. Their subsequent move to Kolkata would be figured out between themselves, the state government and Atletico de Kolkata.
For now, the fans have still been left in the dark. And even tomorrow they may not get the full picture.
But East Bengal and Mohun Bagan have run out of time. Whatever decision they make must be made clear and executed by Thursday. And after this high profile build up that their bid submission issue has gotten, it will be a huge letdown for the fans if they choose not to enter ISL in the end.
If that happens it may create a lot of anger from the fans, but if some of the clubs' officials threats of marches and a public movement as well as today's high strung rhetoric is anything to go by, the club officials as well as the state government are ready to harness that anger in their favour by claiming the ISL's terms were too insulting for the clubs to accept.
It's likely that the final chapter of this drama will still take a while to play out, whether the two clubs submit their bids or not.
And all of this doesn't even take into account how Aizawl FC and other I-League clubs will react if the inclusion of EB, MB and BFC causes AIFF/IMG-R to get top division status for ISL.
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