Atletico de Kolkata announced ambitious plans to bring more spectators to football while raising the quality of the game through the Indian Super League.
Former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly, who is part of the consortium owning the franchise, laid out the objective while announcing mobile service provider Aircel as its principal sponsor here on Monday. “You will be pleasantly surprised to see the new brand of football in ISL,” Ganguly said about the tournament which gets underway here on October 12.
“Through Atletico de Kolkata we seek to introduce top quality players who will showcase a brand of football that will be unique and exciting. Good quality of football will bring spectators to the game,” Ganguly stressing on the partnership with the La Liga champion Atletico de Madrid, where the team is currently undergoing pre-season training. “We are not into this sport just for money, our biggest achievement will be making football a successful sport,” he added.
Exposure helpsBorrowing from his cricketing experience Ganguly said that exposure to top international players and coaches will help the Indian players gain in skill and efficiency. “When I look back at my first successful performance in 1996 while touring England, I think the chance of playing against the best in the business helped me grow as a cricketer. I became a successful international batsman graduating from a good first-class cricketer that I was. Similarly the chance to play and share the dressing room with top professional footballers of the world will certainly help the Indian players raise their own standards,” Ganguly said.
“ISL seeks to put Indian football on a different platform. It will be a big challenge but we can really make a difference if we are able to play good football and elevate the level of the game. The Indian Premier League has done a lot of good to cricket and I hope the same will happen to football with ISL,” Ganguly said.
Atletico Kolkata also announced a flexible band of ticket pricing to accommodate spectators from all sections of the society. “We plan to have segmented pricing to accommodate more spectators. We propose to start the ticket prices from Rs. 200 and it will go upwards in stages,” said Utsav Parekh, co-owner of Atletico Kolkata.