Sunil Chhetri- Lord Of The 90 Minutes

Prolific and fitter than ever, India’s highest-paid footballer Sunil Chhetri is hand-holding the game into a new era of professionalism and excellence.

- Kathakali Chanda

Like every Indian kid growing up in the 1990s, Sunil Chhetri too wanted to be the next Sachin Tendulkar, Leander Paes or Bhaichung Bhutia. However, when an opportunity to be the ‘next big thing’ actually came about, he almost passed it off frivolously.

It was 2002 and the then 17-yearold, who was playing in the Delhi local league for the popular City Club, had received a call-up from legendary Kolkata club Mohun Bagan. So good was it to be true that he assumed it was for the Mohun Bagan SAIL Football Academy, where he would train for three years before making grand plans about his future. He spent his first week at the Kolkata maidan “chilling” and filling in for the big boys—Bhutia, Renedy Singh, Jose Ramirez Barreto—who were returning from summer vacation. Or so he thought. Till his father was summoned from Delhi.

Senior Chhetri, an armyman, took the train to Kolkata, and felt much rewarded for his troubles when he got to share the club tent with Shyam Thapa, whose back volley goal against East Bengal in 1978 is counted among the finest in Indian football history. That high could perhaps only be overshadowed by what happened the next day, when his son was offered a three-year contract with the senior team. Turns out, Chhetri was still a minor and needed a guardian to supervise the signing.

Chhetri’s first pay cheque was of 75,000—his salary for three months— of which he withdrew 30,000 in cash and blew up at a Kolkata mall. It took his father’s intervention to calm the frenzy. “Since then, I started giving my salary to my father. I do it even now. He portions out pocket money for me every month. If I kept all my money, I would probably have 10 sports cars and no house to live in,” says the 34-year-old.