Mahindra United to close down

April 30, 2010 will always be known as a bad day for Indian football.

One of India's premier professional football clubs Mahindra United, run by the Mahindra Group of Companies, is set to close down at the end of this season.

And everyone involved in the game was "shocked", surprised or at awe. The new damn for Indian football is here and then one of the biggest corporate clubs just closes down.

To insiders the threat of Mahindra United closing down will not be new. It has been something which the management has been saying for years, but as it remained a verbal threat many didn't believe it would come. The first real indications where that the contracts of players were not being renewed for the 2010/11 season.

And this seems to have taken a toll on the players, then a few weeks ago Mahindra United were in with a real chance to win the I-League title, but there was a sudden drop in performance and results.

It will not only be a loss to football in Mumbai, but for Indian football too which loses one of its best clubs.

It seems the cost of running a top I-League club was too high for a company of the size of Mahindra's. Can that be???


The clubs background

The company run club had been founded as Mahindra&Mahindra Sports Club in 1962 and was later renamed to Mahindra United in the summer of 2000. The team colours were changed from orange/white to red/black and the team got the nick name of "Red Devils" like their role models - Manchester United.

Over the last decade Mahindra&Mahindra had spend many millions of Rupees on their football team which also brought them a lot of success and trophies on the pitch.

Their biggest achievement came in the 2005/06 season when they won the National Football League title. They also won the Federation Cup twice in 2003 & 2005, the 2003 Super Cup and the very successful year 2003 also gave them the international President of Maldives Invitational Soccer Cup.

Locally in Mumbai they won 13 Mumbai League titles, while only a few days ago their Under-19 boys gained promotion to the Mumbai Elite Division winning the Super Division title. But also the junior sides will be closed down.


Youth policy

But Mahindra's aren't pulling out fully from football.

The company has decided to shift their focus from elite to youth development.

Club president Alan Durante told PTI, "We have decided to get out of competitive soccer and get into grassroots soccer at schools level. This means at the end of the I-League we would not be taking part in any competitive soccer but training school kids to make them better prospects in soccer."

And only a couple of weeks back the Mahindra NBA Challenge community programme was launched in collaboration with the US basketball body NBA.


Mumbai worries

And the closure of Mahindra United might not be the end of the road for Mumbai football. Currently the financial capital of India has three clubs in the I-League. In the summer it could be only one in Air India or maybe even none, if Air India get relegated.

The word is out that Mumbai FC are also a possible closure candidate. Especially with the threat of relegation it could be an option for the Essel Group as no one knows if Zee Sports will continue to be the television partner of the AIFF and the Mumbai FC has been struggling financially.

One can only hope for Mumbai this doesn't happen...