Margao (Goa), Jan 8 (IANS) The molestation controversy is good news for the Churchill brothers football club, a leading sports marketing agency official said Friday.
Speaking at a press conference at a south Goa resort, Suvrangsu Mukherjee, managing director of Total Sports Asia (TSA), said: “Every news which creates negative or positive impact can launch them into the stratosphere.”

Mukherjee further said he wished that the Indian football team gets caught in a similar controversy. “I wish the Indian football team gets into such a situation. I wish when India wins (South Asian Football Federation) SAFF, we could have got such publicity,” he said.

TSA is India’s leading sports marketing agency and brokered the multi-crore endorsement deal between Churchill Brothers football club and Kunnath Pharmaceuticals, makers of aphrodisiac Musli Power Xtra.

Mukherjee, along with the football club management and Musli Power Xtra office bearers, was part of the trouble shooting team at a south Goa resort to save the endorsement deal, which came under threat after three of the club’s top players, including star striker Odafa Okolie from Nigeria, were Tuesday accused of molesting an airhostess on board a Spice Jet flight on their way to Kolkata from Goa via Mumbai.

Following the complaint, the entire 23-member team, which was on its way to play an I-league game with West Bengal giants Mohun Bagan, was offloaded at the Mumbai airport and criminal charges filed against the three accused.

The three-year multi-crore deal between Musli Power Xtra and I-league champions Churchill Brothers was signed in May last year.

Mukherjee said the deal had represented the biggest football endorsement in South Asian football. He added that both the parties were free to step out of the deal, if they wished to.