The incident that happened with Sunil Chhetri is sadly not new.
Sunil Chhetri is a great player. He is one of the best footballers. I didn’t say “Indian footballer” because Sunil Chhetri’s name will always be on a list of the best football players in the world. He has been playing football for the last two decades, and in these two decades, he has achieved almost everything a South Asian footballer can achieve. He is the third(currently active) highest scorer in the world, behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, in international football.
In his career in the field, he has won almost every trophy at the domestic level. For the last decade, he has been playing for Bangalore-based Bangalore FC. With this team, the Chhetri, have won a trophy almost every year. He has also won many trophies at the international level as well. He has been named AISF (All India Football Federation) Player of the Year ten times and by the Football Players Association of India three times.
But we will talk about his achievements in some other post, so today’s focus is on the sad and disrespectful incident that happened with Chhetri.
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What happened with Sunil Chhetri?
Last night, i.e., on September 18th, 2022, Sunil Chhetri won the first Durand Cup trophy of his career. The Durand Cup is India’s most Old Football Tournament.
After this victory, Sunil Chhetri tweeted “Two decades is a bit of a wait, but if it meant doing it in the blue of Bengaluru, then it was worth every season of trying. Durand Cup Champions – would have been a shame if an Army kid playing football professionally never had the chance to say this. 😉
Come on, BFC!”.
He waited for this trophy for 20 years, and yet he was treated in such a way that it became a topic of discussion in the whole country. What happened? Most people on social media already know this.
Who doesn’t remember when Sunil Chhetri went on stage to accept the Durand Cup Trophy? He was not honoured by the Governor of Manipur and West Bengal, Ganesan, who pushed him very wrongly to the side. He pushed because of a photograph of a decorated footballer.
Who is La Ganesan?
He is involved in Indian politics and has ties to the BJP and the RSS. He was a member of parliament as an MP. He has been in controversy. He commented wrongly on the vollagers of TN before. In 2003, he misbehaved with the first Dalit president of the TN BJP, Kirubanithi.
He also made a racist comment on Kirubanithi and pushed him away. Ganesan behaved this way because a complaint was filed against him because of the wrong use of funds. Ganesan became the governor of WB this year.
This is not the first time
This is not the first time players have faced this situation on stage while taking the trophy. This happened because, back then, politicians wanted to focus more on the stage than the player receiving the trophy.
This happened to the players as well. Sharad Pawar was cornered by the Australian cricket team once. The England player also pushed Shashank Manohar, BCCI president that time. All I am saying is that this usually happens during the stage ceremonies in sports. But the reaction should be the same for all situations. In a public event, both players and politicians should behave the same. In this situation, clearly, the politician did the wrong thing.
