ISL SEEKS BIDS TO EXPAND TO 11 TEAMS THIS YEAR

KOLKATA: Keeping the option open for I-League giants such as Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Bengaluru FC to be part of an expanded Indian Super League (ISL), which will have a maximum of 11 teams in 2017-18, its organisers Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) announced plans to invite bids from interested parties.

Bid documents would be available from May 12 to May 24, according to the media release issued on Thursday evening. The bids must be submitted by May 25, according to the release.

The devil though lies in the details. The media release states that should a team from Kolkata win the bid, it will have to choose another city as its home for this season and the next. That will protect the interests of reigning ISL champions Atletico de Kolkata and help the ISL stick to its one-city-one-team rule. However, to ensure that Mohun Bagan and East Bengal do have a chance should they want to, cities such as Durgapur and Siliguri have been kept in the mix . The others are: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Cuttack, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Ranchi, and Thiruvananthapuram. And though it is not mentioned in the media release, being part of the bidding process pre-supposes that interested owners would agree to pay annual franchise fees that ranged from ~12-18 crore in the first three seasons. Citing their long contribution to football in India, Bagan and E. Bengal have so far refused to pay and play. Putting Bengaluru as a city the ISL seeks to have a footprint in also leaves the door ajar for Bengaluru FC to be part of the competition. Officials of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and representatives of its commercial partners were in Bahrain reportedly trying to convince the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to rejig its allotment of Asia slots to India. The AFC Congress was held in Bahrain earlier this week.

An AIFF source said it is possible that AFC would give its verdict of this on May 25.