For Indian football, it’s all self-goals

Football has a big date in court. Thursday, August 28, will determine whether the football leagues — Indian Soccer League, I-League, I-League 2, Women Soccer League, WSL-2 — will happen in India for this season.

To say football in India is in a limbo is a gross misrepresentation of facts. Years of neglect, lack of vision from the administrators, infighting and egos have ensured that the world’s best loved sport is gasping for breath to survive in India.

Other than the plummeting fortunes of the senior men’s team, the bigger issue is the 15-year Masters Rights Agreement (MRA) between the All-India Football Federation (AIFF) and the Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), which is getting over on December 8. The MRA guarantees Rs 50 crore revenue to the AIFF, which is used for all national tournaments.

Both the bodies held meetings to renew the agreement, but a Supreme Court directive, on a hearing on the sports body constitution, stopped AIFF from taking any major decisions. As things stand, the clubs have stopped team operations. Fearing a total halt to the game, Justices Sri Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi have given time to AIFF and FSDL till August 28 to thrash out an agreement so that the leagues are held.

“The AIFF will enter into good faith negotiations with FSDL. The parties will endeavour to arrive at mutually agreeable measures to enable timely commencement of the 2025-26 football calendar,” AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey told The Tribune on Friday.

All indications are that the two bodies will find a temporary situation to restart the ISL, but the bigger issue is how the leagues are run. To give an example, Inter Kashi was declared the I-League champions after they won their petition in the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) last month, but AIFF is yet to hand them the trophy or the winner’s purse of Rs 2 crore. Reason is that Churchill Brothers, who were declared as winners by the AIFF Appeals Committee, has refused to hand the trophy back. The Goa-based club has challenged the CAS verdict in the Swiss Federal Tribunal despite the fact that the AIFF has written to them thrice to return the trophy.

Inter Kashi co-owner Prithiijit Das sympathises with the federation before pointing out that the AIFF should have taken ownership in this avoidable controversy. “I feel the federation has far more important work at hand, which is to revive and start the season than to chase Churchill Brothers. The real question is, when the CAS had told them not to give away the trophy and they gave it unknowingly, why didn’t they ask for the trophy to be returned then only? The trophy belongs to the federation,” Das said.

Chaubey said the federation is neutral. “When the independent judicial committee, the Appeals Committee, headed by a retired High Court judge, passed an order, the AIFF acted upon it and handed over the trophy. When another higher judicial body, CAS, passed an order, the AIFF followed that order and wrote to Churchill Brothers FC to return the trophy. They sought more time as they had appealed in the Swiss Tribunal and the judgment is pending,” he explained.

While not all that is currently playing out in the public is Chaubey’s fault, there have been instances where he could have used better sense. Shrachi, a real estate firm, was chosen as the main sponsor worth Rs 2.5 crore for I-League, I-League 2, WSL, WSL-2 and other tournaments.

The firm did not pay a single penny but then claimed to have suffered losses upwards of Rs 6 crore and demanded full concession. The president was willing to agree. But now the AIFF has started proceedings to get the due amount. Even before they get a penny, the FSDL, their financial partners, has deducted Rs 62.5 lakh from their payments to AIFF, as they are entitled to 25 per cent of sponsorship fees as per the MRA.