The All India Football Federation is set to meet the remaining I-League clubs and potential corporate entries tomorrow, June 29 at AIFF Football House in Dwarka, New Delhi.
The key demands of the I-League clubs going into the meeting are getting more prize money from the current financial levels, increase the current travel allowance from INR 45 lakhs higher and pay the clubs an additional marketing allowance of INR 20 lakhs.
From an I-League club perspective these demands make sense, but the question is if the AIFF and IMG-Reliance will completely fulfill these demands.
But I would have thought with the I-League set to be played in parallel to the Indian Super League from November to March/April there would be other more pressing issues to discuss.
What schedule will be worked out with two parallel leagues? Which team has the right on stadia? What is happening with the Indian players? What is happening to the television production? Whats happening to central league marketing?
It will be interesting to see what all is finally discussed at Football House…
Is ISL now officially the League-2 of India ?
Since wednesday ( 28 June ) evening several online news channels have been reporting
the story that AIFF has claimed the receipt of a letter from AFC that grants official recognition
to ISL , but considers it as League-2 of India , with the champions of ISL getting the right
to play in the AFC club tournament which is intended for the runners of national leagues of
Asian countries.It seems that AFC still considers I-League to be the League-1 of India with
the winners playing the AFC league that is meant for league winners.
Well , this means that even though ISL would practically be League-1 but theoretically and legally
it is the 2nd division of India. This is a big setback for AIFF IMGR because they would now
struggle to convince foreign players and investors on which is the League-1 of India.
I guess , over-confidence of ISL-IMGR lead to this sudden pushback from AFC. If they hadn’t
crossed the boundary of confidence they would have never thought of ignoring East Bengal and
Mohun Bagan because these 2 clubs not only carry a huge chunk of history but a huge number of
fans.
All these online news reports suggested that AFC wants India to have a Single League at the
earliest and so I am curious to see whether I-League brand name remains or ISL. It may be
legally challenging for AIFF IMGR now to obsolete the I-League brand name – its highly likely
that they may need to think of an entirely new brand name of the consolidated national league ,
if they are excessively allergic to the brand I-League and is willing to do the additional
paperwork.
Lastly , in none of the online reports I could find a precise source of information. As of now I
couldn’t find an official press release from AIFF or AFC. It would be interesting to see the letter
that was sent by AFC to AIFF. I guess that letter contains additional information that would cause
additional anxiety and displeasure to those who were overconfident about steam rolling the ISL
brand over millions of East Bengal and Mohun Bagan supporters.