After months of uncertainty, football in India will reboot. Sports Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya flanked by All India Football Federation chief Kalyan Chaubey, announced that the Indian Soccer League (ISL) will be held from February 14.
“We met representatives of 14 clubs and have decided that the ISL will start from February 14. The most important thing is that the players will be playing again and in that sense it is good news for them and the fans,” Mandaviya said on Tuesday.
This was after club representatives, AIFF assistant secretary M Satyanarayan, and joint secretary Kunal met twice to deliberate about the start of football leagues in the country. The deliberations were held on the new AIFF proposal, where the clubs had to split the budget of Rs 26 crore for hosting the ISL by 60:40 ratio with the body. Only three clubs — Inter Kashi, North East United and TATA owned Jamshedpur FC agreed to play in the league. Representatives from Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Bengaluru FC and a few others sought more time to get approval from their owners.
The ministry gave them an hour’s time to decide as AIFF was ready to start the league with less teams. When the meeting reconvened, all except Chennai FC, Odisha FC and FC Goa agreed to play in the league. Currently, only Odisha has not confirmed their participation but they are also likely to confirm.
There were apprehensions that few of the clubs wanted to stall the restart so that they can enforce force majeure clause in the players’ contracts to not pay the players. However, once Mandaviya entered the meeting, everyone agreed for the restart of the league.
A source confirmed a few clubs were reluctant to play ball with both AIFF and the ministry. “It is true some did not want to play, but I think they were reluctant because they have zero trust in Kalyan Chaubey. They had to agree in front of the minister,” he said.
The ISL will host 91 matches in the league on a home and away basis, while the I-League will be held with 11 teams with 55 matches. “However, we will merge both the I-League 2 and I League 3 into one with 40 teams. AIFF will fully fund the Indian Women’s League,” AIFF chief Chaubey said.
Interestingly, the clubs have been given an option to pay the participation fee of Rs 1 crore, either in four equal installments or at one go and a separate bank account will be opened for the expenses for this year’s ISL.