East Bengal Executive Committee Refuse to Sign Final Agreement, Threaten Mass Resignation

SC East Bengal‘s influential executive committee led by Debabrata Sarkar alias Nitu, on Tuesday, threatened to tender enmasse resignation if they were coerced into signing the final agreement with their investors Shree Cements putting their ISL future in a limbo.

This was decided at a meeting of all the members of East Bengal’s executive committee where they made a “detailed point-wise discussion” on differences between the term sheet and the final definitive document (binding agreement).

“The EC has unanimously decided not to sign the definitive document in its current form. They have also decided that they’re ready to tender enmasse resignation if they are forced to sign the definitive document in its current form,” East Bengal’s football secretary Saikat Ganguly said.

“Our secretary (Kalyan Majumdar) also has agreed with the decision and has conveyed this to the president (Dr Pranab Dasgupta), who has informed the EC that nobody has to sign anything at the moment.

“He is monitoring the issue in his capacity and he’s doing his best for a negotiation. But at the same time he fully honours the general sentiment of the EC,” he added.

This comes a week after the club management and the president had sent letters to their investor for an “acceptable resolution” but Shree Cement is not ready for any discussion unless they sign the final agreement as per the “term sheet”.

The investors on their part have maintained that there are no such discrepancies between the two documents but East Bengal club claims otherwise.

Following the exit of former investor Quess Corp last year, East Bengal made a last minute foray into the ISL after SCL came on board by the intervention of state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Having acquired a stake of 76 per cent, the cement giants signed a term sheet with the club in September last year as the red-and-gold’s sporting rights as well all its assets and properties (including intellectual) were reportedly transferred to the newly formed consortium.

But a final binding agreement of the deal is yet to be signed by the club management, leading to the logjam as the Bangur-led consortium is unwilling to build the squad unless the agreement is signed by the club management.

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