While I agree with @Deb_Ban, however in the Indian context, how many so called professional clubs have had the patience to run a loss making organisation.The past experience has been shoddy,with Mahindra United, JCT to name a few of the teams (who have had the distinction of winning Natl. League) have shut shop. How many such instances can one give in World football?
Its early days for BFC and DSK and if the mgmt., fails to rake in revenues/profits from this vertical, am sure they would also go the MU and JCT way.
While am strongly against the way football is run in Kolkata, yet the Kol clubs are still somehow surviving with a cocktail of emotion and unprofessional approach!
It is not the question of winning trophies, but of how to run (preferably) a club. EB and MB may have been successful during the phase when the game was not organized at the national level. The pre-NFL days, when complexities and fund requirement were not high, the game survived solely on the basis of emotion. Surely, this was not the way forward. MB and EB gradually ceded ground to other better run clubs. And soon as other games got themselves organized -- cricket initially, and now Hockey -- football itself took a massive beating. The question is, why. There were other national level teams who could have taken the game forward. The clubs instead got busted themselves. My opinion for this happening is that those clubs (Mahindra, JCT, and the Goan clubs) were not professional and were run whimsically. They did not put a system in place. Corporate club does not necessarily mean professional clubs. I think, the only professional club in India is Bengaluru FC.
Now the question of whether corporate clubs would endure the losses associated with building a club. And my opinion is, a corporate club may not, but a professional club would. Because, they are building a brand in the same vein of a Flipkart, PayTM, or Olx (note all of them are making huge losses, but their promoters are not fools to go on, and there are reasons for it). Mahindra was not a football brand, their cars are. as soon as the club felt the heat on the profit ledgers, they wound up the club to streamline the main business. On the other hand, if JSW feels to exit football (god forbid), they can sell the club and recover the investments. World wide, football clubs are not making losses, but their shares are traded on premium and ownership change hands against huge sums of money.
EB and MB are indeed unprofessional - the world knows it! However, the point is why are the so called professional clubs in India folding up in no time, since their inception! If BFC can operate for even 10 years, I would think its a huge progress in Indian football - but indications aren't in the right direction in the 3rd year itself.
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Its early days for BFC and DSK and if the mgmt., fails to rake in revenues/profits from this vertical, am sure they would also go the MU and JCT way.
While am strongly against the way football is run in Kolkata, yet the Kol clubs are still somehow surviving with a cocktail of emotion and unprofessional approach!
Now the question of whether corporate clubs would endure the losses associated with building a club. And my opinion is, a corporate club may not, but a professional club would. Because, they are building a brand in the same vein of a Flipkart, PayTM, or Olx (note all of them are making huge losses, but their promoters are not fools to go on, and there are reasons for it). Mahindra was not a football brand, their cars are. as soon as the club felt the heat on the profit ledgers, they wound up the club to streamline the main business. On the other hand, if JSW feels to exit football (god forbid), they can sell the club and recover the investments. World wide, football clubs are not making losses, but their shares are traded on premium and ownership change hands against huge sums of money.
On what basis you are differceiating BFC from other clubs? Any criteria?