How Bengali actor Jeet is moving the goalposts for Futsal in Kolkata

Picks up second franchise in Premier Futsal; after Chennai, Kolkata kicks it up a notch as 2nd city to get a team in five-a-side football tournament

The second team in the Premier Futsal league, which will kick off later this month, is Kolkata. Bengali actor and entrepreneur Jeet has picked up the franchise, through his company Grassroot Entertainment Pvt Ltd. He has signed a long-term agreement with Premier Futsal, to acquire the Kolkata franchise of the Futsal league. The first team to come on board was Chennai, after the promoters of football club Chennai City FC picked up the league’s Chennai team.

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While the financial details of the deal were not divulged, Premier Futsal managing director Dinesh Raj had, in his earlier interactions with Business Standard, revealed the franchises will end up spending between Rs 8 crore and Rs 10 crore in the first year. The Kolkata franchise will be christened Kolkata 5s. In the inaugural season, each team will be similarly named. The franchise owners will then be allowed to rebrand their respective teams from the second season onward.
 

 

Grassroot Entertainment Director Jeet said, “Football has a huge, fervent following in Kolkata, where love for the sport is passed on from one generation to the next. It is, therefore, a matter of great pride for me to introduce a faster, shorter version, of the beautiful game to Kolkatans. Through Futsal, the younger generation can hone its skills and talent, which will eventually benefit in the long-term development of footballers.”

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Delighted to have a superstar of Jeet’s stature backing the Premier Futsal, Raj said, “It gives me immense pride to announce Jeet and Grassroot Entertainment as owners of our Kolkata franchise. We are delighted to have Jeet backing the Premier Futsal and playing his part to grow it, in what is football’s Indian heartland. The response we have received from prospective owners across all cities validates our decision to get behind Futsal as a sport. We will unveil the owners of the other franchises very soon.”

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Premier Futsal, which kicks off on July 15, is a private, semi-professional league promoted by Xavier Britto of the Indev Group. The league has signed some popular futsallers in the world - spearheaded by Alessandro Rosa Vieira, fondly known as ‘Falcão’ – and footballers like Paul Scholes, Miguel Ángel ‘Míchel’ Salgado and Anderson Luís de Souza, known as Deco, to compete.

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Each franchise will be assigned a marquee international football player, seven international and five Indian futsallers to their squad to participate in the inaugural season, through a player draft scheduled later this month.