“First step towards regaining our status,” Mohammedan boss, Dipendu Biswas declared after its promotion to the ISL

As the second oldest club in existence after Mohun Bagan SG, the 133-year-old Mohammedan Sporting’s ascendance to the ISL roster is a significant milestone for the club.

File Photo: Manager and Director of Mohammedan Sporting club, Dipendu Biswas clinches ISL promotion. | Photo Credit: STAN RAYAN/ The Hindu

The I-League triumph accomplished Mohammedan Sporting’s aspirations of joining its city cousins – Mohun Bagan SG and East Bengal – in the country’s top league.

Mohammedan Sporting’s arrival will add a substantial amount of fan following in the Indian Super league, which is striving for greater popularity to make its existence worthwhile.

As the second oldest club in existence after Mohun Bagan SG (established 1889), the 133-year-old Mohammedan Sporting’s ascendance to the ISL roster is a significant milestone for the club which has been struggling for recognition.

The lack of achievements at the national stage over the last few decades saw Mohammedan Sporting relegated to the local scene where it had to be content with the Calcutta Football League’s top division crown.

“This is a very significant day for Mohammedan Sporting. We have been able to reestablish ourselves as a national-level club by qualifying to the ISL. As a first step towards regaining our status in the national format, we qualified to the I-League in the 2020-21 season after doing well in the qualifiers. That was the start of our journey which concluded in such a fantastic way,” said former India international Dipendu Biswas, who has been one of the key members of the club’s revival after he became the football secretary of the club in 2018.

Biswas, who ended his playing career in the Mohammedan Sporting colours, has since been working tirelessly in various roles as a manager and also as the technical director to see the team win the maiden I-League title and join the elites of the country’s footballing order.

“We received Bunkerhill as the principal investor in 2020 and that added a lot of momentum to the team’s progress which now sees us reaching the ISL. We owe a lot to the support and professional expertise of Bunkerhill, which gave us the strength to aim high and finally achieve it,” Biswas said about the sports management company that joined the club as the principal investor in October 2020.

Mohammedan Sporting continued to remain a contender for an ISL berth since it revamped the team under Russia’s former assistant coach Andrey Chernyshov early in 2021. “We reached the Durand Cup final in 2021 after we appointed Chernyshov. We lost to FC Goa in the final and then finished runner-up in the I-League (2021-22) after losing a crucial match against Gokulam Kerala FC who eventually became the champions. That setback reinforced our conviction that we had the ability to become the best and thankfully we could realise it in such a fantastic fashion,” Biswas said.

Biswas said that success in football is defined more by the spirit and determination of the team as a unit. “We are not a hugely invested side but we have the commitment and the spirit to achieve it. The players have remained committed to the cause and Chernyshov’s coaching acumen gave the guidance and direction to the team to achieve the target,” Biswas said as the team celebrated its coronation as the new I-League champion.