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After the meeting of the AIFF president Praful Patel and the Kolkata giants East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, the imminent merger of the Indian Super League and the I-League seems to be off the agenda for the next few years with a proposal on the table to run both ISL and I-League in parallel over a seven month period.
A well informed source told PTI, “I-League will remain the official league, while the Indian Super League will be expanded into a seven-month long tournament to be played on the weekends. There will be no unified league. We will take a call after two-three years.”
And through this piece of information or possible proposal being made public the confusion in Indian football is now complete.
Because there is an issue of definition of what is what, the status of the two entities, who qualifies for Asian competition, how does the transfer market work, and many many more questions to be answered.
Until earlier today it looked like that the Indian Super League would be expanded by three teams in East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Bengaluru FC with the question being how these club would integrate themselves into the existing ISL model and when the merger would happen, while Aizawl FC winning the I-League had created a new problem of sorts for the AIFF and their marketing partners IMG-Reliance of not really wanting to allow the new Indian champions a place in the newly contemplated top tier.
Now what was been disclosed earlier today is totally different and will potentially cause a nightmare for all involved, then time is short and the future structure of Indian club football could be heading for even more confusion than expected clarity.
Whatever the decision, at least a clear cut decision despite opposition would have been something to look forward to, but now we will all have to wait and see what happens in the coming days and weeks as the AIFF top brass are set to discuss matters with the Asian Football Confederation and world governing body FIFA at the FIFA Congress Manama, Bahrain next week.
