Mohammedan Sporting officials are mulling resigning en masse following mounting debts, a three-window transfer ban by Fifa and business houses showing zero interest in investing in the club.

Even if in the end they change their minds, there is no denying the fact that Mohammedan Sporting are in a major crisis. They have a liability of around ₹17 crore — the salary which is due to the players and support staff, and payment to vendors — which they cannot clear unless an investor comes on board and bails them out.

“Yes, next week the club officials may put in their papers, owning moral responsibility. The trustee board will then take over,” a senior club official said on Sunday.

The officials sent a letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday, detailing the club’s predicament.

“A few months back, the chief minister had requested a city-based industrialist to pump in money. The deal did not materialise in the last five months and we are back to square one. It is difficult to sustain with limited resources,” the official rued.

“The trustee board has already voiced its displeasure with the way things are being run in the club,” working president Mohammed Qamaruddin said.

Mohammedan Sporting earned an entry into the ISL after winning the 2023-24 I-League.

They had a long-term investor in Bunkerhill Private Limited, which got Shrachhi Group as a co-investor. The investors had stopped payment midway through last season due to the club’s failure to transfer shares.

Their Russian coach Andrey Chernyshov left in January, and the foreign players moved Fifa for non-payment of salaries. Mohammedan Sporting finished last in the 13-team ISL-XI.

This season, they managed to build a rag-tag squad and somehow staved off relegation in the CFL Premier Division. They faltered in the Durand Cup.

Mohammedan Sporting, who skipped the ongoing IFA Shield, will play in the Super Cup beginning in Goa on October 25 despite objections from the marketing partner of the All India Football Federation (AIFF).

They are, however, yet to start preparing for the tournament. “We are likely to start from October 17,” Qamaruddin said.

If the 134-year club stops its operations, then the Super Cup will be its last tournament. To make matters worse, the AIFF may not allow the club to play in the tier-1 league (when it starts), given the sorry state of affairs. “That will be another humiliation,” an official lamented.

In the past, too, the club had mulled closing shop but had continued after intervention from people of influence.

Hopefully, this time also it will be something similar.