Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has convened a meeting of officials from Shree Cement and East Bengal club on Wednesday, a decision she took hours after lashing out at the investor on Monday for sending a letter to her government expressing its inability to continue its association with the Maidan giant.
“I am no one to take any decision on East Bengal. The authorities who were there earlier have sent me a letter to inform me that they will not be able to continue with the club at this very last moment. This is bad attitude. They kept the club waiting for so many months and now at the last moment they are saying they cannot do anything. We are all unhappy with this situation,” Mamata said during a news conference on Monday.
“Last time when they (Shree Cement managing director Hari Mohan Bangur) met me, they said everything would be sorted out before August 16 (the day the Bengal government observed Khela Hobe Divas). So suddenly what happened that things changed? What is the mystery behind it?
“East Bengal have a great legacy. We all want Mohun Bagan and East Bengal to play in the ISL (Indian Super League). We will also let them know that we are unhappy with the situation and we will try to sort this out. Time is very short, let us see. I urge everyone in the club management to come forward and deal with the crisis,” Mamata said.
The Telegraph, in its August 13 edition, had reported that Mamata wanted the investor and the club to end the impasse over signing of the final agreement before August 16.
The chief minister will now meet both the warring parties on Wednesday at Nabanna, the state secretariat. Sources said they were hopeful of an agreement.
Mamata’s attack on Shree Cement came as a surprise to everyone who has been following the investor-versus-club duel closely.
On August 2, during a state government programme, the chief minister had asked East Bengal officials to give some leeway to the investor. She had also assured the supporters that the club would remain a part of the ISL.
“Nobody expected her to react like this on Monday. It has definitely given club officials a shot in the arm. Till yesterday (Sunday), it was like why is East Bengal not signing the deal but after chief minister’s news conference, the tables have certainly turned,” someone in the know of things, who did not wish to be named, said.
According to a source, Shree Cement’s letter to the chief minister stated that despite its best efforts, no headway has been made regarding the signing of the final agreement.
“The letter mentions that even after incorporating changes to some contentious clauses, the club is coming up with new demands every second day. The situation has become so bad that the investor has no other option but to think of pulling out. The investor also said that the sporting rights would be given back to the club and no compensation would be asked for. It was at the chief minister’s behest that Shree Cement came on board so the investor thought it would be prudent to keep her informed,” the source said.
“We haven’t got any letter from our investor regarding its decision to pull out. I want to assure all the fans that the club’s dignity would not be compromised,” senior club official Debabrata Sarkar said.
The bone of contention is the alleged discrepancies between the term sheet, which was signed in September last year, and the final agreement. The signing of the term sheet paved the way for East Bengal’s dramatic entry into the ISL, the country’s No. 1 league. But East Bengal later alleged that there were a lot of deviations from the term sheet in the final agreement.
Shree Cement disagreed and maintained that the club must sign the final agreement without delay, warning of no further investment if the deal wasn’t initialled. It had already spent around Rs 55 crore last season.
The club executive committee refused to budge and decided not to sign the final agreement unless changes were made. After much deliberations, certain clauses were represented in a different way in the final agreement even though the club reiterated it had been short-changed.
CFL match deferred
In another development, the Indian Football Association (IFA) has postponed SC East Bengal’s CFL Premier Division A match against Bhowanipore from Tuesday to August 31. “We want both SC East Bengal and ATK Mohun Bagan to play in the CFL (Calcutta Football League). SC East Bengal had requested us for a change in date since they were not yet ready, so we did that. The IFA is hopeful that SC East Bengal would be seen in action,” secretary Joydeep Mukherjee said.
