Indian Football: ISL to be country's premier league

Sports
May 18 2016 12:01 PM
Preksha

A new roadmap under which the Indian Super League will be the country's top league was presented by AIFF and its marketing partners IMG-Reliance in a meeting on tuesday. This drew furious reactions from clubs like Mohun Bagan , East Bengal, Salgaocar FC and Sporting Clube de Goa. The merger of ISL and I League have been in rumors since a while now, ending which AIFF on Tuesday virtually recognised ISL as the country's premier league followed by League 1, 2 and 3. It will have 3 more 7 month leagues from 2017 onwards.

A multi-country tournament is also planned from 2017 in which teams ranked between 120 to 150 in the FIFA chart will be invited to participate. This tornament will replace the Nehru cup. The best teams from ISL, League 1 and League 2 will then play for the Super cup which was previously played between the winner of I-League and Federation Cup. It shall last for two months starting in March 2018.

People present during the meeting icluded former captain Bhaichung Bhutia, current star Sunil Chhetri ,officials from AIFF, ISL, I-League, I-League 2, Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) and official broadcaster Star Sports.All India Football Federation president Praful Patel said that ISL has been a "disruption in Indian football and it is because of this disruption that we are now looking for solutions".

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