What’s the story?
It is not uncommon to see football clubs associating themselves with big screen Hollywood celebrities. However, big European clubs hoping for the success of Bollywood stars is a recherché sight. But that hasn’t stopped Real Madrid from wishing Shah Rukh Khan on Facebook for his latest endeavour, Raees, to become a success.
Los Blancos only recently presented Shah Rukh Khan with a jersey with 555 embedded on it and have now followed up their act by wishing him success with Raees. The Galacticos’ social media account posted: "Bollywood ke badshah aur utsaahi Madridista Shah Rukh Khan ko Raees The Film ki kaamyabi ke liye dher saari shubhkaamnaye!”
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The post roughly translates to: ‘We wish the king of Bollywood and zealous Madridista, Shah Rukh Khan, a lot of success with his film, Raees!’
In case you didn’t know…
The film was released on January 25, only four days ago, and has racked up £352,753 already. This might not seem like a huge amount to people who are used to seeing figures crossing over 100 million for Hollywood movies, but the amount of money Raees has made in four days is an astonishing feat keeping the standards of Bollywood in mind.
The heart of the matter
While this certainly is an act of reverence from the Madrid outfit, it can’t be helped but noticed that this is a well thought out plan to increase their fan following in India – a country with a population of a billion people.
Meanwhile, SRK also replied to Real Madrid’s post, wishing them good luck for the rest of the season: "Let me know when the team wants to see Raees The Film. Thank you and best of luck for your games!"
What’s next?
Given the fact that there is potentially a lot of money in India, European clubs might as well begin to associate themselves with Bollywood stars in order to earn as much revenue as possible from the nation.
The rise of the Indian Super League has also increased the number of football followers in the country and it could be taken a step further with European clubs directly engaging with India.
Sportskeeda’s Take…
Real Madrid are going through a slump of late as they crashed out of the Copa del Rey at the hands of Celta Vigo. Los Blancos will now hope that best wishes from one of the most famous stars in India will bring them good luck for the crunch part of the season.
