There seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel for Indian football. At least on paper. The country's premier football league — Indian Super League -- is likely to start this December if everything goes off well. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) and its commercial partner Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) have jointly submitted a proposal to the Supreme Court on Thursday, in a bid to resume the 2025-26 ISL season. According to the proposal, the FSDL is ready to let go of the commercial rights to organise and manage the ISL. However, this doesn't indicate that FSDL will be out of AIFF.
As per the proposal submitted to the court, the AIFF will initiate an open, competitive and transparent tendering process to find a new commercial partner. Days after the SC allowed talks to continue, senior AIFF officials met with FSDL representatives in Bengaluru on August 25.
The joint submission of AIFF-FSDL to SC touched upon starting the season with the Super Cup. "To ensure the timely commencement of the football calendar and to maintain competitive continuity, it has been agreed that the 2025–26 season may begin with the Super Cup or another domestic competition directly under AIFF’s control, after an adequate pre-season period," said the submission.
What seems to be of importance is "Transparent Process for Grant of Commercial Rights." The submission said that AIFF has agreed to conduct an open tender. "It will conduct a competitive and transparent tender (or equivalent process) for selection of a commercial partner to conduct the ISL in line with global best practices. Such process will be conducted in conformity with the National Sports Development Code 2011, the National Sports Governance Act 2025, the AIFF Constitution, and applicable FIFA/Asian Football Confederation (“AFC”) regulations," said the submission. The process may be managed by an independent agency and will be concluding by October 15.
"The FSDL on its part has agreed to waive off its contractual Right of First Negotiation and Right to Match under the Master Rights Agreement dated 08 December 2010 ('MRA')," said the document.
This was confirmed by M Satyanarayan, Deputy Secretary General of the AIFF. "They (FSDL) have given back the aforementioned rights," he told this daily. The AIFF will float a tender from September 15. To ensure a smooth tendering process, the AIFF will look for help from top consulting companies too. "We will be seeking inputs from one of the 'Big Four' of consulting companies in our tendering process," Satyanarayan added. He hinted that the tender may be global. "Whoever wins the bid on October 15, will have to conduct the league by December," he said.
The FSDL has also said it duly discharged the July–September quarterly rights fee of `12.5 crore under the MRA on 18 August 2025. "FSDL also agreed to advance the final tranche of the rights fee of INR 12.5 crores (October–December 2025), if required by AIFF," said the submission.
This development comes two days after FIFA-AFC wrote a strongly-worded letter to AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey giving an ultimatum to implement the new constitution by October 30, failing which the international body may sanction them.
Supreme Court Justices Sri Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi will be hearing all the parties on the draft constitutional case on whether the interim or final judgement be pronounced on Monday, September 1