Deceit, Denial and Dissent: The Mohun Bagan story

Out of the I-League title race, it seems that the only way tensions can be addressed is if a new corporate sponsor is found at the earliest.

The Kolkata Derby is easily the biggest game in Indian football and the fallout from it has historically had a great effect on the players. In 1975, Mohun Bagan fans chased club legends Subrata Bhattacharya and Prasun Banerjee across the city, following a 5-0 loss at the hands of East Bengal in the IFA Shield. While East Bengal fans denounced their players and coach when they lost 5-3 to Bagan in 2009.

However, the story is different this time. For the first time ever, the fallout from a derby loss has led to supporters questioning the competence of those running the club and organizing massive protests against those in-charge.

Following Mohun Bagan’s 2-0 loss to East Bengal in the Kolkata Derby on 27th January 2019, fan groups have issued statements withdrawing their support from the club for the foreseeable future. About 100 fan-clubs have taken up this course of action so far, by boycotting stadium visits and organizing protests outside the club arena and on social media. Indeed, only 145 people turned up to watch Bagan take on Gokulam Kerala at the Salt Lake Stadium last week, when usually at least a few thousand show up regularly for every home game.

This season has also seen the departure of Sankarlal Chakraborty

It all started in August 2018, when after years of losing out on the Calcutta Football League to East Bengal, The Mariners finally clinched the title for the first time since 2009. In the heat of the moment, Tutu Bose, one half of the Bose-Mitra group who had run the club for the last few decades, declared that the club was already in talks with a number of big corporate sponsors to help them transition into the Indian Super League next season.

East Bengal had already procured one in the form of Quess Corporation Limited, who would invest a record-breaking ₹400 crore in the club in the next 10 years.  Meanwhile, Bose and Anjan Mitra had a quibble of their own, that caused them to break their partnership and run as separate candidates for the club elections that took place in October.

Bose ran out as the thumping winner and with the I-League already ongoing, fans expected that the news of a huge sponsor deal would be announced sooner rather than later. It was, after all, based on this promise that he was elected to power once again.

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However, days turned into months and the fans grew weary of those in power. They have had their fair share of manipulative politics and empty promises from the club management, they could no longer contain their anger and it was vented in the form of the #HokProtibaad (Let’s Protest in Bengali) campaign, that has become a viral trend on social media over the past few months.

The story behind the scenes was very different though. Tutu Bose and the Bagan management had handed all their shares back to the club, had registered it and its logo as a brand and were talking to the likes of CESC (ATK’s majority stakeholder) to sponsor them next season. They were also willing to shift from the previously proposed 50:50 model, to ensure that the external investor could have majority stake in the club, like how the Quess Group has a 70% share at East Bengal.

The club's fans are not happy with the team's management

The authorities, however, did fail to communicate the progress made to the fans in a timely manner. Moreover, the legal obligations to conduct these exercises were both time-consuming and involved a lot of red tape. As such, the fans were left in the dark and that added to the already colossal pent-up frustration in their ranks. All that it needed was a trigger to explode.

Ironically, it was the Mohun Bagan management, alongside the Bidhannagar police that provided the final push. On the 27th of January 2019, Mariners Base Camp tried to bring in a number of TIFOs and banners inside the Salt Lake Stadium, to both support their team and as a suitable answer to the East Bengal Ultras, which had mocked them for being unable to beat them in the form of visual and vocal support from the galleries.

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Despite being the home side, three Bagan TIFOs were denied entry by the police for containing “objectionable content” while the Red and Gold Brigade managed to ship in all their TIFOs, banners and even smoke bombs. With East Bengal doing the double over the Mariners for the first time in the league since 2003, the fans could take the injustice no longer. Seething with rage, they finally exploded against the management and officials and it is set to continue at least until the season ends.

The club has reached out to its fans now but, the damage is irreconcilable, according to some of them. With Bagan out of the I-League title race, it seems that the only way the tension can be addressed, is if a new corporate sponsor is found at the earliest and the club can reorganize itself before applying for the ISL ahead of the next campaign.