Their World Cup love affair began more than three decades ago in Spain. Now 81-year-old Pannalal Chatterjee and his wife Chaitali, 72, are once more heading from cricket-mad India to the ultimate football fiesta.
“This may be my last one, but I am so happy at getting the chance to watch a tournament in Brazil,” Pannalal said during a stopover in Singapore on his way to what will be the couple’s ninth World Cup.
“It’s always been my dream to watch the World Cup in Brazil. It’s the Mecca of football,” he told AFP by phone.
The Chatterjees, who live in the eastern city of Kolkata, are life-long football fans and Pannalal has been involved as a volunteer administrator for the sport in eastern India since the early 1970s.
They got their first taste of top-level football in 1982 when a friend whom they were staying with in London got them tickets for the tournament in Spain, when a young Diego Maradona first garnered global attention.