Comma before period: The sad tale of I-League 2017/18
"Officially, the I-League is the top league of the country.” That’s a line All India Football Federation secretary Kushal Das has been quick to throw in whenever he had the chance.
It’s difficult though to imagine how he could have kept a straight face while saying that, for in a year when I-League and their fancier cousins the Indian Super League are being held simultaneously, the contrast could not have been starker.
The former kicked off on Saturday when Minerva Punjab FC held Mohun Bagan 1-1 in Ludhiana. Despite Star Sports broadcasting both leagues, there have been no corny promo videos of I-League footballers toiling in fields or driving rickshaws before a football magically falls out of the sky.
The best 150 Indian players automatically went over to ISL, with I-League clubs picking from the best of the rest. Fixtures for clubs arrived with less than two weeks left, while their ISL counterparts knew where they were going to be on a particular day two months in advance.
There were eleventh-hour changes to the last-minute fixtures, with Ranjit Bajaj, owner of Minerva Punjab FC even taking to Twitter to complain about having to waste money revising travel arrangements. Label it whatever you want, but this does not feel like a top division league.
“The league started on Saturday, but I don’t see Star Sports promoting it,” says Chennai City owner Rohit Ramesh. “There have been no tweets, videos or television ads, like you see for ISL.
"That doesn’t help us when we go looking for a potential sponsor. Whether people like it or not, whether they watch it or not, the I-League is India’s national league. Especially in a year when Star has been given so much power over deciding the fixtures, they should promote it a lot more as well.”
The fact that Star has been tasked with promoting the I-League raises a lot of red flags with team owners, considering they coown the rival ISL.
The broadcaster has promised better coverage, with I-League matches getting telecast in HD for the first time, but Rohit is not convinced. “To be honest, I preferred TEN (broadcasters last year). They were bad initially, but did some good work last year,” he says.
The I-League’s fortunes since 2013 have been intrinsically linked to that of the ISL for, let’s face it, whatever the ISL has wanted, they’ve taken. Till this year, that did not pose an existential crisis for the I-League for everything that their big brothers took — players, stadia — they returned after three months.
There was even an argument to be made that the ISL worked in I-League’s favour with many teams subsidising spend on players by loaning them from ISL teams. Foreigners like Bernard Mendy opted to stick around after coming to India through the ISL. This year though, the ISL’s focus has shifted to relevancy and there have been no bigger victims than the I-League.
A longer ISL meant that they were reduced to a second-tier tournament in terms of personnel. Clubs like Chennai City have been priced out of playing at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, with officials asking them to pay the exorbitant fees that Chennaiyin pay. But perhaps the most crucial development was when AIFF decided that ISL champions would get a spot in the AFC Cup.
That was the I-League’s claim to legitimacy. Now they find themselves sharing that as well. But though you may have to squint really hard to spot them, there are encouraging signs. ILeague teams, which were for so long run on their owners’ charity, are now finding sponsors. Mohun Bagan finally found a shirt sponsor in MP Birla Cement.
Even bigger was Minerva Punjab FC, all of the one-year-old in the I-League, convinced Apollo Tyres to sponsor them. It was a sign that there is money to be found if you go looking for it. “The sponsorship deal is a game-changer for me. If it were not for that I probably would have wrapped it up after this season,” Bajaj says.
“It shows that if you reach out, through social media, through fans, you will find sponsors.” Apollo, curiously took notice after Minerva fans bombarded them on Twitter. Meanwhile, being exiled from their home base has prompted Chennai City to look at things differently. They aim to be the first I-League club to own their own stadium. “Everything is in place and we hope to start construction by early 2018,” says Rohit. “In a couple of years, we hope to be playing there.” Of even more consequence to the existential crisis that ILeague clubs are facing is a loan move that went through with little fanfare a couple of months ago.
Chennai City loaned one of their breakout stars from last season — S Nandhakumar — to Delhi Dynamos. Written into the contract was a future transfer fee — between Rs 10 to Rs 20 lakhs, according to sources. If Dynamos exercise that in January, it will set a new precedent, something that may help I-League clubs find their place in the convoluted hierarchy of Indian football. Clubs that focus on the youngsters, identify them and sell them on for a bigger fee earning enough to fund their operations for a few years.
There are entire leagues in Europe that thrive on that model — there is no reason why Indian clubs can’t do the same. But the fact remains that these are all just flimsy straws to tug at, thin lines of light piercing the dark storm clouds that hover above the I-League. Many just expect it to die, one way or the other. Many expect the Kolkata duo to jump ship like Bengaluru FC did, rendering the I-League meaningless.
Others expect them to do what the Goan clubs did and limit themselves to their state leagues. Either way, the forecast is not good for the I-League. As one of the many jokes that greeted news that Star was going to telecast the I-League in HD went, “We watched its life in 144p. Now we can watch it die in HD.”
Rule tweaks
The AIFF executive committee gave the green light for registration of six foreign players, with four, including one Asian, taking to the field. From amongst the six registered players, two have to be Asians or registered with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
The AIFF previously followed the continental three plus one foreign player rule. The I-League winner will play in the AFC Champions League while the AFC Cup slot has gone to ISL.