Bengaluru FC and their talismanic captain Sunil Chhetri won their maiden Durand Cup football tournament title after beating Mumbai City FC 3-1 in the summit clash at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Sunday. (More Football News)
However, amidst the celebrations, there was a certain act that didn’t go well with the Indian football fans, whose video went viral on social media. The incident happened during the presentation ceremony where the Governor of West Bengal, La Ganesan, was seen pushing Chhetri for a photograph with the trophy.
Ganesan was standing slightly beside Chhetri when the Bengaluru skipper was handed the winners’ trophy. Ganesan pushed Indian football’s poster boy to make his way to the middle for the photo-ops. Netizens slammed the minister for his ‘shameful’.
Even former India cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra retweeted the video captioning it ‘disgraceful’. Some even asked for an public apology from the West Bengal Governor. State Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Aroop Biswas was also present during the ceremony.
But La Ganesan's shameful act wasn't the only one on the evening. Minutes before Chhetri incident, Bengaluru FC goalscorer Siva Sakthi was treated the same by Biswas. In a different video, it was seen Biswas pushing Siva Sakthi by his left hand while giving a trophy to Roy Krishna, who played for ATK Mohun Bagan till last season.
Earlier, Siva Sakthi (10th minute) and Brazilian Alan Costa (61st) scored for the winners while Apuia got the lone goal for the Mumbai side in an entertaining match.
Chhetri also had a couple of golden opportunities to score, once in the 69th minute, when his left-footed strike missed the target and then again in the 87th when he was one-on-one with the keeper, but Lachenpa was up to it and brought off a great save.
Bengaluru’s victory on Sunday also marked a completion of all the national-level tournaments won by the club. Bengaluru have previously lifted the trophies in I-League (2014 and 2016), Federation Cup (2015 and 2017), Super Cup (2018) and the Indian Super League (2019).
