East Bengal FC were left red-faced on Wednesday when they were forced to cancel their new signing — Costa Rican World Cupper Johnny Acosta's press conference due to the absence of an interpreter.
The Kolkata giants signed Acosta, who had played against the likes of Neymar and Philippe Coutinho, at the recently-concluded Fifa World Cup 2018 for a reported sum of more than Rs 1 crore from Colombia's Rionegro Aguilas.
However, after spending big money on the Spanish-speaking 35-year-old defender, the club's offhand attitude was on display when they arrived for the press conference without an interpreter.
The I-League side's newly-appointed CEO Sanjit Sen told the media that Acosta would be speaking only Spanish and insisted the reporters to keep their questions short and precise.
East Bengal officials relied on popular translation app "Google Translate", according to GOAL. Soon after the press conference began at 5:30 pm IST, the officials figured out there was a problem with the internet connection at the media centre of the club.
They were forced to shift to a room inside the club office and even called on the club's former player and club official Alvito D'Cunha, who speaks Portuguese. However, he wasn't able to help and the officials weren't able to get the job done with Google Translate as well.
Even as Sen and the club officials were left embarrassed, the press conference was postponed to Thursday at 5:30 pm.
East Bengal had the resources to buy Johnny Acosta, a Costa Rican who featured at the #WorldCup this year, but couldn't arrange an interpreter for his interaction with the media. Excellent. #IndianFootball https://t.co/zK1hABLtzI
— Manasi Pathak (@ThatUnitedLady) August 8, 2018
'East Bengal are a great club'
Despite the poorly-arranged media interaction on Wednesday, Acosta was able to answer a couple of questions posed by the journalists.
"I came to India because East Bengal are a great club with (nearly) 100 years of experience. I spoke to Alvito and that's why I decided to come to India," the Costa Rican defender said, as quoted by Goal.
Acosta has made 71 appearances for Costa Rica. The East Bengal marquee player played all three Group E matches at the Russia World Cup. The Central American side finished at the bottom of the four-team group behind Brazil, Switzerland, and Serbia.
