Peerless will win the league and George will make sure that. Then again nothing will change in Bengal football. Fans will be still divided on sub ethnic lines. Something which is not healthy for a sustainable football environment. Ideally we should have clubs from districts, at least from the big ones like Siliguri, Maldah etc. It's a shame that after 70 years of independence everything in WB is kolkata centric. Not only football. Ask a non Bengali Indian to name a few WB cities except Kolkata and see what happens. With such a big population we have only one city, Kolkata that too developed by Britishers mostly. Now think about other big Indian states and how many cities they have.
Football need clubs. Clubs need a big Metropolitan Region to sustain a league and a big working class population. Maybe all reasons mentioned above made Football in Calcutta possible which other states lagged behind.
District club will find it hard to get sponsor or attract players to be competitive against big city rivals.
In Scotland, Football revolve around Glasgow. and its suburbs..
@munna219777: Maybe the reason that you are offering is true in the case of football but I am in agreement with @sam's comment that leaving apart football, there has hardly been any development outside Kolkata (barring a few exceptions) and that people in India identify West Bengal primarily with Kolkata and not with any other city. Cities like Kalyani and Durgapur, the brainchild of B.C. Roy, have failed to maintain sustainable growth after the 50s and 60s
I am getting news that Kolkata police has put dipanda dikas name on interpol list after he doped/scammed a CFL team after taking whole salary in advance and did not appear for CFL , Kolkata police has asked Punjab police to arrest him and Extradite him to Kolkata
You may be right. There were allegations that he took a sum of one lakh as advance from Southern Samity and did not turn up even for a single match in the CFL
Actually, West Bengal isn't that large a province (smaller than Jharkhand, Odisha etc.) with population concentrated in the Hooghly valley. So, having another big city in WB is not very viable. Siliguri doesn't have much hinterland if it doesn't become a gateway to the North East, our hopes of having a second metropolis aren't bright.
Siliguri is our second city. It's got an international airport, a 25k capacity flood light equipped stadium, growing economy and a major railway station. It's a gateway to North East which can't be circumvented. The communists and now TMC have been such humongous failures in developing North Bengal, that Siliguri hasn't seen its potential yet forget reaching it. It's the only place where a fourth club may have a chance to survive in Bengal.
Actually Asansol is the second largest city of WB. But not much sports culture there. Andal airport is nearby. Some stadiums owned by the PSUs are also there.
IFA should incubate some clubs in those cities and kickstart a state league.
Zee U19 Bengal league had district teams. But they played in Kolkata. Trades cup used to be there for districts. Also Bengal ISL involving districts I'm hearing for long time now.
The support base of EB MB MSC will be hard to take away. The clubs may be based in Kolkata but they have the unstinted support of the entire state. ATK with all their money failed.
Comments
Then again nothing will change in Bengal football. Fans will be still divided on sub ethnic lines. Something which is not healthy for a sustainable football environment. Ideally we should have clubs from districts, at least from the big ones like Siliguri, Maldah etc. It's a shame that after 70 years of independence everything in WB is kolkata centric. Not only football. Ask a non Bengali Indian to name a few WB cities except Kolkata and see what happens. With such a big population we have only one city, Kolkata that too developed by Britishers mostly. Now think about other big Indian states and how many cities they have.
Trades cup used to be there for districts.
Also Bengal ISL involving districts I'm hearing for long time now.