Calcutta soccer faces crippling cash crunch

Pallabh Bhattacharya

Imagine! Mohun Bagan AC has become a public limited company. Its public issue is over-subscribed and the scrip is listed on the country's major stock exchanges.

Sounds incredible? Well, that scenario might not materialise in the near future, but the 100-plus year old football club is seriously exploring ways and means to solve its crippling cash crunch/

"We are in dire need of funds to stay afloat in today's money-oriented Indian soccer scene. I have kept insisting that the club should be transformed into a public limited company, since getting sponsors is a pretty tough proposition today," says Anjan Mitra, secretary, Mohan Bagan.

And it's not just Mohan Bagan, mind you - the two other Calcutta giants, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting, are also plagued with a shortage of funds that has hampered them in their bid to rope in star players.

"A few years back, the dream of a good footballer was to get an offer from a Calcutta club. Now, even Calcutta players are looking for opportunities elsewhere," points out Mitra.

And he has a point there. Whereas Calcutta's maidans were the ultimate goal of aspiring footballers, today clubs like Kochi FC and Churchill Brothers draw more stars than the erstwhile Calcutta giants.

Why?

"The days of amateur football is over," says a senior member of the East Bengal team, who wished to remain anonymous. "Today's soccer is not sentiment-oriented, it is market-oriented. And we players will play for those clubs that can give us the best deals."

Sounds mercenary, perhaps, but who can blame him? We live in a market economy, and soccer is not exempt from its demands, its pulls and pressures. Professionalism is bound to edge out the amateur spirit, on the soccer field as in every other walk of life.

"Earlier, the good players were content with the adulation of fans, it was what they were looking for, what gave them the ultimate high. Today, what everyone looks for is the pay check," says former India captain Surojit Sengupta.

The former Calcutta and India ace makes it clear, however, that he is not blaming the players. "What I am saying is that we should have the guts to face up to the changed conditions," he argues.

And it is a reluctance to face this change, leading soccer stars argue, that is afflicting the leading Calcutta clubs most. Says a former office bearer, now estranged, of East Bengal: "When soccer has become an organised industry, with crores of rupees pouring in, the Calcutta clubs are still in another world, we still use the same tackle to catch the big fish that we used ten years ago. How then can you expect results?" he demands.

Paltu Das, Secretary, East Bengal Football Club, agrees. "The top players are not paying us much attention to our offers, as they are getting much better ones from clubs in the west and south."

This season, East Bengal had a total of Rs 6 million to offer its stars by way of contracts, while rising clubs like Churchill Brothers and Kochi FC had billions to dangle in front of the stars. "The tragedy is," says a member of the East Bengal club, "that the football budget has not been changed in the last five years. We had a Rs 6 million budget in 1992, we have the same budget today."

Interestingly, the prize money on offer to winning clubs has skyrocketed at the same time. Earlier this decade, a club would get somewhere between Rs 6-7 million for winning all leading tournaments. Today, prize money has escalated to around the Rs 80 million mark, and it is anticipated that the billion ruppee figure will be touched by the end of the century.

What this has done is increasing the financial package demanded by top stars. Towards the end of the last decade, for instance, a sum of Rs 3 million could net the country's biggest star. Today, the likes of Baichung Bhutia, Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri get amounts estimated around the Rs 10 million mark.

And this is why the Calcutta clubs are suffering - to win tournaments consistently, they need four, five big stars. But with their budgets, it has become impossible to shell out that kind of money. This places the clubs in a vicious Catch 22 situation - no stars mean no wins, no wins mean no money in the kitty, no money means no stars... and meanwhile, the fans are gradually eroding, thus worsening an already impossible situation.

Player power is another important development of recent times. Bhutia, for instance, has indicated that he only wants to be used in ten or twelve select matches in a year, and not played in all games as was the case previously. Calcutta clubs are not amenable to such conditions - the fans expect their stars to turn out for all games, no matter how irrelevant, and that puts pressure on the stars. "The more matches you play, the shorter is your tenure at the top," argues a top footballer. "Clubs in the west and south know this, so they allow us to play in only the crucial games, unlike the Calcutta clubs."

Such, then, is the nature of the disease, so what of the remedy? Mohan Bagan this year made a start at finding a solution, by issuing 500 new life memberships, at Rs 5,000 per head. This is expected to net Rs 25 million. In addition, the government has granted Rs 12 million to each of the three Calcutta giants.

But could it all be too late? This year, the Calcutta clubs have been starless, and singularly unsuccessful in the national league. And prospects seem bleak for the next season as well, though the three Calcutta clubs are doing their best to attract some foreign players.

A lot depends on the success of these endeavours. For as a leading soccer pundit pointed out, if this trend continues, then Calcutta soccer, which has held the premier position in the country for many years now, will soon die a natural death.