Captain KV Lalu and youngster Shahbhas Saleel signed contracts with ONGC Mumbai and thus leave Viva Kerala after a two-year stint.
Saleel and Lalu have informed coach Sreedharan of their decision to seek greener pastures at the Mumbai club. Interestingly, ONGC still plays in India's 2nd Division league while Viva will feature in the I-League.
Saleel said that he was sad to leave the club and wished his former team best wishes for the new season.
Coach AM Sreedharan comments that, "They were free to sign for any other club, but we tried to convince them to sign for Viva. But this is professional football. They would have had better chances to showcase their talent with Viva in the I-League, but they chose otherwise. Whatever my opinion on their decision is, I am not disappointed! We will find two more than equal replacements."
Viva Kerala have also decided to release both foreigners, Badmus Baba Thunde and Bello Razaq, both of whom have joined ONGC Mumbai too.
Baba Thunde was the star striker of the Kerala club for the past few years and played important role in taking the club to the top division.
According to reports, Sreedharan had also received an offer from ONGC Mumbai to join as the Chief Coach but he declined the offer and will stay with the club from Kerala.
Source: VivaKerala.net
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Friday 5 June 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.
Comments · 1
That is oil and there is money in there. More over ONGC has been active in Indian Football through supporting NFL and then i-league. Clearly there is some ambition in there and i suppose both youngsters are going to a belt where football is soon catching up with youngsters. Mumbai has a good league which gets quite a lot of media attraction (much more that cochin premier league) and with some good sponsors. There are developmental projects that are coming to Maharashtra - Liverpool has announced an academy and big names like subrata paul has signed for Pune fc.
It will be a very good opportunity for lalu and saleel.
ONGC could be like the Russian Gazprom!