There is no ambiguity that Indian football is in deep trouble. The Indian national team failed to qualify for the Asian Football Confederation Cup and plummeted to one of the lowest world rankings in recent times. To make things worse, the Indian Super League—the country’s premier league that was touted as a game-changer just a decade ago—is staring at a bleak future. After two attempts in less than a month, the All India Football Federation, the sport’s custodian, has not received a single bid for the tournament’s sponsorship. As the deadline expired on November 7, so did the target of hosting the competition in December.
If the ISL is not held in time, the league may not finish by May, tripping the clubs’ hopes of representation in Asian club championships. According to the last contract, which ends in December, the Football Sports Development Limited, AIFF’s commercial partner in charge of ISL, was paying ₹50 crore a year for 15 years to the federation. The FSDL did not want to continue after the AIFF showed reluctance with some of their demands, which included ‘No relegation’. In this request for proposal, the annual payment was reduced to ₹37.5 crore or 5 percent of gross revenue, whichever was higher; yet there were no takers.
This shows ISL’s decline in terms of revenue generation and viewership. There is also a belief that the ISL has not contributed much in lifting the football standards in the country. The way things are, the AIFF is treading a precarious precipice because they cannot go back to FSDL without agreeing to some of their demands including no relegation, which could attract a penalty from the sport’s global governing bodies.
One must also consider that the bidding process is being carried out under the Supreme Court’s supervision, with the bid evaluation committee led by former SC judge L Nageswara Rao. The RFP—framed as per the AIFF constitution and in consultation with 11 ISL clubs—was drafted with help from a top business advisory body and monitored by the evaluation committee. None of them could avoid the impasse. Now, all stakeholders must find a swift solution, as this will affect other leagues for men and women, too. Two ISL clubs have already stopped operations for now. Without leagues, ultimately, players will be the ones most affected.