MUMBAI: Differences notwithstanding, there is one area that Ajit Issac, the (relatively) new majority owner of storied Kolkata club East Bengal, will be fully aligned with Football Sports Development Ltd, the commercial partners of the All India Football Federation. Which is the view that the bane of the legacy football clubs are its entrenched “legacy” officials.
A case in point is the latest rift within Quess East Bengal in the aftermath of the meeting of I-League clubs with the AIFF disciplinary committee on Sunday on the matter of their non-participation in the Hero Super Cup.
While club official Debabrata Sarkar, who has given himself the mandate to speak on behalf of the club has said that it was a mistake to withdraw from the tournament, that is not how officials representing Quess Corporation, the 70% majority stakeholders of the club, see it.
Speaking to IANS, a senior Quess official said that they aren’t aware of any such statement from the club official wherein the club has regretted the decision to withdraw from the tournament.
“We haven’t issued any statement, and if we issue one then it will go to all parties concerned,” the official told the news agency.
The official went on to add that irrespective of what Sarkar had said to the media after the meeting in the capital, Quess chairman Ajit Issac has nowhere mentioned that the team made a mistake and the decision was regrettable.
“Ajit has not said anything like this. Also, we have no comment to offer on a statement made by an official of the club. And it is not that we didn’t want to participate in the Super Cup. We were forced to withdraw (as AIFF chief Praful Patel did not meet the I-League clubs),” the official told IANS.
The Quess official’s position on the matter was echoed by a senior official at Gokulam FC. The club is also facing disciplinary action for non-participation in the Super Cup. But the official clarified that there was no reason to call the decision a mistake.
IANS quotes Sarkar, on his part, as having said: “We committed a mistake and other clubs also committed mistakes. As national body of the game, the AIFF is like our parents and just like parents treat their children, the AIFF should not take action against the clubs in this case.”
