East Bengal and Mohun Bagan may not be allowed to play in AFC club competitions

Both East Bengal and Mohun Bagan might be in trouble

The giants of Indian football, East Bengal, and Mohun Bagan face the very realistic possibility of failing the Asian Football Confederation’s club licensing criteria. The Kolkata giants are currently managed by Trevor James (East Bengal) and Sanjoy Sen (Mohun Bagan) respectively and both of them are not in possession of the pro-license.

What’s a Pro Coaching License?

Basically, a pro-licence is coaching license is issued to coaches on completion of the course work as required under the guidelines set down at different levels of coaching. It is a requirement in order for anyone wishing to manage a football club at the top level. While in Europe, there is the UEFA Pro License; its equivalent in Asia is the AFC Professional coaching Diploma which is the highest level of accreditation awarded by the AFC.

Now as per the new AFC club licensing criteria, it is mandatory for clubs to have pro-licensed coaches in order to play in AFC organized tournaments i.e the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup. The failure to do so will result in clubs being disqualified from the tournaments, and that in turn will also lead to lots of players refraining from joining any of these top clubs. Other repercussions such as a change in management are the add-on effects in the event the requisite licensing criteria’s are not met.

An incident like this is not the first of its kind in Indian football, in a separate incident back in the year 2013, almost 14 clubs were pulled up by the All India Football Federation for not possessing the requisite licenses. However, a solution was reached by granting of National Licenses to participate in the I-League and the Federation Cup.  A similar solution is being proposed in the current scenario as well, with Mohun Bagan eligible to play in the AFC Cup as well.

What now for Mohun Bagan and East Bengal?

In recent years, Indian football has managed to garner a lot of eyeballs. The proposed merger of ISL-I League hasn’t also been finalized with traditional clubs still apprehensive of the entire system where ISL entities would be preferred.

AFC competitions would have been a major attraction for these two clubs, allowing them the pulling power as other ISL clubs when inevitably they land in direct competition. The decision is now on the board, do they elect a manager who has pro-license but doesn’t know the ethos of the club as Trevor Morgan and Sanjoy Sen do? That at the moment definitely seems to be the lesser of the two evils.

The fact that two of the major clubs in India are faced with such a dilemma highlights the failure of AIFF. While money being poured into football is a good sign it is necessary to understand that football has to develop in a manner which is sustainable to the existing clubs as well. Making sure that the best coaches in the biggest clubs have a pro-license will definitely be a step in the right direction.