Indian footballers contribute money to combat Covid-19

Several members of the Indian football team have come forward to dnate money for fight against coronavirus.

Defender Pritam Kotal contributed Rs 50,000 to the West Bengal Chief Minister's fund. On the other hand, midfielder Pronoy Halder took up the responsibility of providing food to some underprivileged kids who earn their bread on a daily basis.

"There are a lot of underprivileged kids at the Barrackpore Mangal Pandey Football Coaching Camp who earn on a daily basis. The situation is a bit difficult now. So I am helping procure food, or food items for them to come out of the crisis," the All India Football Federation's (AIFF) official website quoted Halder, who also donated Rs 20,000 to the CM relief fund, as saying.

"I know that there are also many who stay around the Barrackpore Railway Station and they are struggling for food. So me along with some of my friends are distributing basic food items to the station-dwellers, and others who stay outside," he added.

Also, Prabir Das contributed Rs 50,000 while Arindam Bhattacharjee donated Rs 25,000 to the fund.

"We understand that we need to stand together to fight against this. We have tried to make small contributions to the fund initiated by our Chief Minister. Hope we see the light at the end of the tunnel soon," Das said.

Meanwhile, 'Players for Humanity' - the philanthropic organisation formed by the former players like Mehtab Hossain, Rahim Nabi, Denson Devadas, Sandip Nandy, Debabrata Roy and others along with current players like Pritam Kotal, Pronay Halder, Arindam Bhattacharjee, Prabir Das, Souvik Chakraborty, Debjit Majumder and many more have also initiated talks to stand together and help during this challenging period.

Earlier in February, along with Indian Football Association (IFA) and Income Tax Recreation Club, had come forward to organise a charity match at the Mohammedan Sporting ground to help late footballer Radhakrishnan Dhanarajan's family.