Budging to fans’ longstanding demands, the stakeholders of Mohun Bagan on Wednesday announced that they would remove the prefix ATK from the name of the 133-year city-based football giants.
The club, which is principally owned by the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, will now be known Mohun Bagan Super Giant, a pattern which follows the conglomerate’s naming philosophy of their sports teams. RPSG are also the owners of IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants. Their earlier IPL team was known as Pune Supergiants.
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“Subsequent to the Board meeting held today, the name of the club will be Mohun Bagan Super Giant (MBSG) from 1st June 2023,” the club announced.
ATK Mohun Bagan had grabbed their maiden Indian Super League title this season with a 4-3 win over former champions Bengaluru FC in the penalty shootout in March this year.
Following their triumph, Goenka had informally announced that the ATK prefix was finally going away after three years and they would be known as MBSG, but the date was formalised after their Board meeting here on Thursday.
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“We are removing ATK, it will be Mohun Bagan Super Giant from next season. Well, it was something that was on the cards. I was waiting for the win to announce it,” Goenka had said after their ISL triumph.
Two-time Indian Super League champions ATK was formerly known as Atletico de Kolkata because of their tie-up with the Madrid-based Spanish giants.
But Atletico Madrid parted ways after three seasons and sold its 25 per cent stake to the RPSG Group which then became the principal owners of the ISL franchise that came to be known as ATK.
ATK then came to the rescue of Mohun Bagan, who were struggling to get into the top-tier ISL because of financial woes.
The RPSG Group bought a majority (80 per cent) stake in Mohun Bagan ahead of the 2020-21 season as the two merged clubs came into existence from June 1, 2020.
But the decision to prefix ATK with the century-plus old club’s name did not go well with the fans, who alleged that the club’s legacy and rich history were being compromised.
They also hit the streets with protest march near the club ‘s tent in Maidan and CESC office, and “Remove ATK” placards would be seen everywhere in the stands whenever the team played an ISL match at the Salt Lake Stadium.
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