Name leaves you without sponsorship.. in Indian Football

Mohammedan Sporting Club, founded in 1892 has a long lineage in Indian Football. The team, which has been promoted to next i-league; failed to gather sponsorship for the coming season. It seems they had approached Vivel  ITC, but the deal did not materialize. Why? The name it seems is a freaking stumbling block! “Mohammedan”.

Terrified, is what i am, to see such a news. The company promotes its biscuits and cookies using a bollywood Muslim but cant provide sponsorship to Mohammedan Sporting Club because the team name might look like ITC Mohammedan Sporting Club. That will that be the case with any other names too , right? … if it was Vodafone, it would have been Vodafone Mohammedan Sporting Club, which sounds even sillier than the other.

How about Infosys Mohammedan Sporting Club? There are some inherent problems with our corporates; In his book; The Age of Kali, William Dalrymple remembers his trip to infosys office in Bangalore and gives a very queer name to the employees of Infosys – The Brahminical Computer Boffins, a thinly veiled assault on Infosys and a very valid truth. I don’t claim that there are no other castes working in Infosys or there is a class hierarchy working there , somehow i always felt that the company brandishes a Brahminical arrogance. And this very arrogance is characterized in various other organizations  in various degrees.  For a club like Mohammedans, they will struggle to attract sponsorship.

We have heard about Madhavi Kapoor; who wanted to sell her flat in Pune and found that her efforts were being thwarted because her buyer was a Muslim. Now, we hear Mohammedan Sporting Club is being denied sponsorship, these two instances are  manifestations of some notions inherent in our society. For me, it is an eye opener to the sense of intolerance that is prevalent in our society. Infact, i will be extremely happy, if a corporate comes and backs Mohammedan Sporting and i wish such a thing happen,s to squash my extreme cynicism.

Not that i am trying to be yet another god man, i was proved wrong when i made a  dubious  prediction  in my  Caste/Communal blog about Kerala last time around.

For a good cry; check out this Indian Football news digest. (Get all your hot.. hot news about Indian football here!)