CFL: Mohun Bagan-East Bengal derby to be played on September 24

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Kolkata, Sep 4: Indian football's much-awaited fierce derby between Kolkata giant East Bengal and Mohun Bagan will be played on 24th September, the Indian Football Association has confirmed.

The match between these two giants will be played on Siliguri and it could well turn out to be the decisive factor for the Championship.

East Bengal are the reigning champions of CFL and have won the trophy consecutive seven years at a trot and Mohun Bagan this time will be eager to displace them to claim the honour after missing out it on a regular basis.

In the ongoing 2017 Calcutta Football League, both the clubs are yet to lose a single match as East Bengal are standing at the top with 5 out of 5 wins whereas rival Mohun Bagan are placed second with 4 wins, winning all the games.

Most of the times, such high voltage matches are being played in Kolkata's Macca Yuva Bharati Krirangan (YBK), however with the Salt Lake Stadium going through the final stage of preparation for the upcoming U-17 World Cup, the Indian Football Association decided to change the venue to Siliguri.

Kalyani stadium was also an option to organise the match, however as the stadium has only 10,000 seats to accommodate the fans, the governing body did not take any risk and shifted the base to much higher ranked stand to Kanchenjunga stadium which has a capacity of close to 25,000.

The ticket allocation for the derby is yet to be decided and IFA secretary Utpal Ganguly has suggested that after a meeting on 7th September with Siliguri Sub-division Sports Council and the two clubs correspondents, timing, ticket allocation etc will be finalised.

Siliguri is believed to be a lucky place for East Bengal however in the last two Derby's they only managed to salvage one draw there and lost the other by 2-1.