#TFGtake - Tutu Basu's resignation sends a clear message to Mohun Bagan officials; evolve or perish

THE INTERNAL STRIFE at Mohun Bagan over participation in the Indian Super League took a new turn yesterday when club president Swapan Sadhan Bose, or Tutu Bose as he is popularly known as, stepped down.

In the resignation letter the veteran administrator - who is also a shipping company and newspaper owner as well as a former politican - cited health as the reason he was stepping down. Several media outlets quoted him as saying, "I can't run the club from wheelchair."

However, the timing of the resignation raises a lot of questions and concerns over whether or not that is the actual reason of his stepping down. 

Despite vehement assertions of interest and downright threats made in alliance with arch rival club East Bengal and the Indian Football Association (West Bengal), the club has failed to sway IMG-Reliance into giving them a discount on the ISL franchise fee and a right to play out of their home city Kolkata while Atletico de Kolkata still holds exclusivity over it as per their ISL franchise contract. The club picked up a bid document and did not submit it, and although they received sympathy from AFC General Secretary Dato Windsor at the all-stakeholder meeting in Kuala Lumpur, ISL has gone ahead and announced 2 new teams for ISL - including Bengaluru FC - without waiting for the Kolkata clubs to come around and submit their bids. 

This means East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are likely to play in the I-League in the 2017-18 season which, despite being the official top division league, is set to play a second fiddle to ISL financially, as the two leagues run in parallel for the first time. The crisis the club faces here is one of losing their best players to the cash rich ISL, along with their status as one of the leading and most powerful clubs in the country.

Mohun Bagan's biggest hindrance when it came to participating in ISL was the high budget requirement, for which they would have to take on a corporate partner who would demand majority shares in the club. This is something the club has been resisting for a while as a debate over whether this path should be taken or not continues among club officials. Ever since the sponsorship deal with McDowell's was liquidated, the club has been running on money provided by club president Tutu Basu. But he alone cannot pay for an entire ISL team.

It is widely believed that Mr Basu, and his son and senior club official Srinjoy Basu, were both in favour of playing in ISL with a corporate sponsor, and ready to give up some of the control of the club's operations in order to achieve that. But another group of senior club officials led by club secretary Anjan Mitra were reportedly against this, because they did not want to let go of the control they have over the club. It was Mr Mitra who took the initiative to form an anti-ISL coalition with East Bengal and IFA when IMG-Reliance refused to waive their franchise fee; a move that would have allowed the club to get into ISL without handing over majority shares to a corporate partner.

Even in the last two days, following a chat with AIFF President Pradul Patel, the club officials sat down for a meeting to decide whether or not they want to make the switch to the ISL but came out with no concrete decision. The club president's resignation came just hours after that.

Many are viewing this resignation as an indication that Mr Tutu Basu no longer wishes to finance the club squad out of his own pocket, especially since the spnsor attention and players are being lured away from the I-League by a parallel ISL. And despite the influence and respect Anjan Mitra commands within the club, he does not have the means to cough up the money to make a strong team that can challenge for the I-League title. 

The club has the means to attract a sponsor who can finance them, and even IMG-Reliance is reportedly ready to consider adding both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal to the ISL team list for 2017-18, but for that to happen, Anjan Mitra must be convinced to either come on board with handing over power to a corporate sponsor or resign from his post.

And that's where the timing of the resignation becomes so crucial. The club president who has held the capacity of an administrator for 28 years is sending a message to the members: that a new perspective has to be adopted if the club is to survive in this new Indian football landscape. 

Never in its history of 128 years has Mohun Bagan been excluded from the centre stage of Indian football, and failing to switch to ISL - which everyone knows is going to become the official top division league in the near future - can be a historic mistake. The old way of running the club, semi-professional and often autocratic, is incompatible with the direction Indian football has taken with ISL, and the old breed of officials must step aside to let the club evolve with times.

That's not to say that Mr Basu's influence at the club has diminished. He has several loyalists among the members, and his own son is a senior official. But Srinjoy Basu's vision for the club is much more modern and professional, and he has been in favour of playing in ISL at any cost. 

It remains to be seen if the club's technical committee will accept Tutu Basu's resignation. It's also unclear whether his resignation will be a permanent one. 3 years ago Mr Basu resigned from his post along with several other officials in light of Mohun Bagan's continued lack of success in I-League and other national level competitions. But they soon came back, in the guise of "popular demand" through club elections, and the Basu-Mitra alliance consolidated its power in the club again when the Mariners went on to win the I-League and the Federation Cup over the next two seasons.

The next election for the club's technical committee is set to be held in September. Many are speculating whether this can become, for the first time in decades, an election with a genuinely uncertain outcome, with Tutu Basu and Anjan Mitra, once considered inseparable best friends, competing by themselves or through their family members and loyalists, against each other with distinctly different visions for the club's future as Mohun Bagan faces its biggest existential crisis ever, one that even eclipses the trauma of temporary suspension from I-League during the 2012-13 season.

But the club does not have till September to decide on its plans for this season. The pressure is now on Anjan Mitra to step down following Mr Basu's footsteps so that the club's power structure overhaul can go ahead. If Mr Mitra holds onto power for the moment, it can result in Mohun Bagan landing in genuine trouble over finding funds to make a good team for the I-League.

Ever since the legendary Dhiren Dey left the club, Mohun Bagan fans and officials have always looked to Tutu Basu to dig the club out of finacial and other ditches. It is rumoured that Mr Basu has even sold one of his ships to pay for the club's annual budget. He is the reason Mohun Bagan has been competitive at the highest level despite not having a big corporate sponsor. 

But what is life without the living-breathing lifebelt called Tutu Basu and his ever-generous wallet? Mohun Bagan may be on the verge of finding that out, as the club's future slowly moves towards a critical sink-or-swim juncture.

In Europe, as money has flooded into football, examples of clubs with long histories opting to sell majority stakes to poweful corporate interests is abundant. And in most cases, the inflow of new money has revived the clubs' hitherto flailing brands. As Indian football goes the cash-heavy corporate route via ISL, it may be time for Mohun Bagan to do the same.

Get the latest in the world of Sports, Teams, and Players! Free Delivery to your Inbox.