Lights Dimmed In Club Lobbies

Reliance arm-twists AIFF to make ISL the top football league, as old I-League titans cry foul.

- Soumitra Bose & Neelav Chakravarti

JULY 9, 2019 could be a momentous date in Indian football’s recent history. While it could pitchfork the relatively new Indian Super League as the nation’s No. 1 football league, it could also endanger the future of century-old clubs like Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and a clutch of legacy Goan outfits like Churchill Brothers. Dethroning the I-League, still recognised as India’s national competition by the Asian Football Confederation and FIFA, will mean low-budget but extremely popular teams from the Northeast and Punjab that are applauded for their robust football may even cease to exist.

A weak All India Football Federation executive committee is caught between its very influential commercial partner—Reliance—and clubs that have nourished and kept the game alive ever since Shibdas Bhaduri captained Mohun Bagan to victory in the 1911 IFA Shield final against the East Yorkshire Regiment. Much of the romance of the beautiful game in India is tied to local clubs great and small: the exhilarating, demotic pull of a Mohun Bagan versus East Bengal match, with heaving bleachers crammed with 1,00,000 fans, or the ardent Messi­loving Manipuri or Mizo kid dribbling obsessively all day. Consequently, much is at stake if the AIFF’s commercial partners muscle their way through in making ISL India’s premier league.

Football in India is virtually in the grips of the Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL). Founded in 2014, it is a subsidiary of AIFF’s commercial partner Reliance, which runs the glitzy ISL, a cosy ‘closed league’ with no promotion or relegation—something rare in world football. Eight FSDL officials hold key positions in AIFF committees, allowing Reliance to dictate terms. Dissent within the AIFF is ineffective as president Praful Patel and secretary Kushal Das don’t have the temerity to look Reliance in the eye.