Sabyasachi Bagchi: From the very beginning we told that FSDL is helping East Bengal club whole heartedly so that they can play in the Indian Super League this season & that’s exactly what’s happening. A club can only bid to play the top league if they have the right infrastructure to play. Keeping that rule in the mind, the new company, ‘Shree Cement East Bengal Foundation’ thought to submit their bid. However, certain things are very important to submit a bid. ‘Sporting rights’ and ‘NOC’, are something that ‘Shree Cements East Bengal Foundation’ doesn’t have but interestingly, ‘East Bengal Football Club Private Limited’ has. So, even if they want, ‘Shree Cements East Bengal Foundation’can’t submit their bid. This is because the newly formed company isn’t registered at AIFF or at FSDL. FSDL and Football House have already informed this to the newly formed company. Thus, the decision was changed. As of now, it is decided that the club will submit their online bid today and the company that will submit the bid is – ‘East Bengal Football Club Private Limited’. The company will submit their offline bid by 17th September through courier service. Then it is expected that FSDL will announce East Bengal’s participation by 20-23rd of September. After that, the fixtures will be announced.
Thus to complete the entire process properly, ‘Shree Cements’ management bought the entire share of ‘East Bengal Football Club Private Limited’. Shree Cement will have 76% of the share and East Bengal will have 24% of the share. This is very important to note that ‘Shree Cements’ have only bought 100% share of the franchise, not of the club. But why did ‘Shree Cements’ buy the entire share of ‘East Bengal Football Club Private Limited’? The reason is to play in the ISL, the company was facing a lot of issues regarding their license. They don’t have time thus can’t get a new license from AFC. Hence, keeping in mind about the emotion of all the supporters, the new investor thought of going with the existing company only. Not only that, a lot of players are already having their contract with ‘East Bengal Club Private Limited’. Hence, they had to come to the new company. According to the rules, one player can only sign for one company. Thus, keeping everything in mind, ‘Shree Cements’ will submit their bid and the name of the company is going to be, ‘East Bengal Club Private Limited’ so that they don’t face any issues to play in ISL.
Now coming to AFC, East Bengal might face a lot of problems if they qualify for AFC Cup in the coming years. The reason being that the license belongs to East Bengal but the company’s name is ‘Shree Cements East Bengal Foundation’. Thus the new management will focus on getting a proper license from AFC with the name, ‘Shree Cement East Bengal Foundation’.