I-League coronation will fuel Mohammedan Sporting’s ISL journey

Mohammedan Sporting has turned the arc-lights back on itself with the recent I-League triumph.

This reinstated the credence to its erstwhile stature as a football giant jostling for space alongside its city cousins — Mohun Bagan and East Bengal.

Much like a fallen hero in the historic context, Mohammedan Sporting’s existence as a football club in the last few decades has been a tale of pitiful decline. With controversies and mediocrity engulfing it, the once towering force in Indian football was virtually relegated to oblivion.

As the first Indian team to win the prestigious Calcutta Football League in the pre-Independence period (in 1934), Sporting assumed a stature that would dwarf the achievements of its more famous compatriots (Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. It won the prestigious Calcutta Football League (CFL) five successive times from 1934 to 1938.

Despite being a couple of years younger than Mohun Bagan (Asia’s oldest footballing institution), Mohammedan Sporting (established in 1891) straddled the sport like a colossus with a trove of trophies.

The club has recorded a lot of firsts in its list of achievements, besides winning the CFL. This includes feats like being the first Indian team to win an overseas tournament and the first Indian team to win the Durand Cup and the Rovers Cup without conceding a goal.

This would place Sporting on the same platform as Mohun Bagan, which was the first Indian team to win a tournament (IFA Shield in 1911) after beating a British regimental team.

Mohammedan Sporting was doing the same thing by the third decade of the 19th century that significantly overshadowed the other two city giants, rendering them virtually insignificant.

The next five decades (till the middle of 1980s) would see a lot of success stories by Sporting but it gradually fell to disrepute, achieving little by way of success.

The fan base, that runs into millions across the country thanks to its religious nomenclature, started diminishing as the club regressed into a period of mediocrity with its team repeatedly failing in regional and national tournaments.

The team was also in the news for wrong reasons, such as fan violence, which became the order of the day. And with a management unwilling to turn to a professional arrangement, the team’s form and fortune hit doldrums.

After almost three decades of darkness, a new management assumed power in 2020 and tried to haul the club out of its distress. The new office bearers started looking for investors to fund and professionalise the club.

This saw the arrival of Bunkerhill, a Gurugram-based sports management company, which decided to invest in Sporting’s revival. “We entered when Mohammedan Sporting management was looking for an investor as their own initiative was not generating enough funds to sustain the team’s aspirations of playing in the big league.

“We did our research and found that Mohammedan Sporting had a huge potential and we started with the plan of getting the team to the I-League. The team was then playing the third tier of the national league system,” says Dipak Kumar Singh, director of Bunkerhill, which owns 61 per cent stake in the team that secured its passage to the ISL. Mohammedan Sporting entered into an agreement with Bunkerhill in October 2020.

“We started a three-year project with the aim to see the team qualify to the top tier of the country’s football league, the ISL. It feels nice that our efforts bore fruit and we could reach the target just the way we had wished for,” Singh, who is also the chairman of Sporting’s football committee, told  Sportstar.

The professional setup ensured that experts took charge of the decision-making process, which saw the arrival of the former assistant coach of the Russian national team, Andrey Chernyshov.

The new head coach helped Sporting reach within striking distance of the I-League title in the 2021-22 season. A loss against Gokulam Kerala ended its title hopes but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the door to ISL promotion was yet to be opened for the I-League champion in that season.

“Sometimes whatever happens, happens for good. Winning the league then would not have given us the promotion. Winning matters now as we go into the ISL at the right time,” Singh added, expressing satisfaction with the fact that the team does not have to pay the hefty franchise fee.

Another name that shares the onus of the team’s triumph is the former India international and the former club forward, Dipendu Biswas, who, as the football secretary and the senior men’s team manager, took the role of an interlocutor between the club management and the investor.

“We are not a hugely invested side, but we have the commitment and the spirit to achieve it. The players have remained committed to the cause and Chernyshov’s coaching acumen gave the right guidance and direction to the team to achieve the target,” said Biswas, who also played a role in enlivening the dressing room by sharing his wisdom and experience.

Singh applauded Biswas’ role in Mohammedan Sporting’s success, saying, “He was more like a psychologist in the team as he would try to provide the right advice and motivation in trying to get the best out of the players. He also helped the coach in effectively implementing the team’s plans and strategies.”

Looking at the tough road ahead after ISL qualification, Biswas said that the club will be giving its best to retain the nucleus of the team.

“We hope to retain 80 per cent of the squad and make additions only when necessary. We would like to go ahead with the players we have groomed over the years,” Biswas said.

The transition to ISL will not be stark or surprising as Mohammedan Sporting has a fairly settled team that needs minor additions, felt Singh. “The transition will not be difficult as we have qualified for the ISL on merit. We had the offer of paying the franchise fee and participating in the ISL, but we decided against it.

“There are a lot of advantages of qualifying as a champion. It gives you the chance to prepare a proper team under a good coach,” he said while adding that Chernyshov will continue as the head coach.

“We have understood that money cannot always give you success. Last season (2022-23) we had the highest budget in the I-League as we hired a lot of expensive players but ultimately understood money is not going to give you the championship. The reason for Mohammedan Sporting’s success is scouting,” Singh said, while adding that the management will revise the budget according to need.

“We have seen that there is not much of a difference between the Indian players playing in the two leagues. We will have to select some good foreign players for which we have the whole spectrum of the European and Latin American leagues, and get the right players in the right positions,” he said.

Mohammedan Sporting will prefer to play the ISL matches in front of its fans in the city and will urge the State Government to renovate the Kishore Bharati Stadium according to the specifications laid down by the ISL.

“We would prefer to play the regular matches in KBS while having the derby matches (against Mohun Bagan and East Bengal) in the Salt Lake Stadium,” Singh said.

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