Top tier not a certainty for League winners
KOLKATA: Whether Chennai City FC, new India champions after some late drama on Saturday, will play in the top tier next season would seem like an unusual question but then football in India is going through an unusual time. For almost three years now.
“We hope to be there. If we are not it is difficult but it is not for me to speculate,” said Akbar Nawas, the Chennai City FC coach after winning the I-League title in Coimbatore on Saturday evening.
Asked how it would feel if they were to miss out on top league action despite being India champions, Chennai team owner Rohit Ramesh said: “We will play wherever the AIFF (All India Football Federation) lets us. We are looking at things long-term, build infrastructure and develop youth teams through our tie-up with FC Basel.”
Last month, Chennai City FC sold 26% stake to Swiss champions Basel.
Playing in the ISL in 2019-20 isn’t priority, Ramesh had said in New Delhi where the partnership was announced.
Since AIFF and its commercial partners sounded out clubs about a tiered league structure with Indian Super League (ISL) at the apex in May 2016, uncertainty has been the only certainty.
Bid documents to expand ISL haven’t been issued though rumours they will be soon have been doing the rounds since last November.
“Every year, we would hear that this would be the last I-League and we are now in the third season,” said Ramesh
TO AFC AND BACK
Meetings stretching to the headquarters of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in Kuala Lumpur haven’t yielded a solution to the problem. One needs to be found before the 2019-20 season starts in August or September because India won’t remain a two-league nation for another season.
The AFC and Fifa, football’s global governing body, tried to help with a two-member committee entrusted to finding a “Medium/Long-Term Road Map for the sustainable development of Top Level Indian Club Football”.
Compiled after interviews with a wide array of officials from club, state units and the federation, the report, a version of which was published in this paper on April 5, 2018, suggested adding two teams to the 10 in ISL for 2019-20, one through the process of issuing tenders and another through “sporting path.”
By that the report’s authors Alex Philips and Nic Coward meant the champions of the 2018-19 I-League.
The report may have also recommended adding two teams to the top tier in the next two seasons taking it to 16 in 2021-22 when promotion and relegation too would start. With there being several pain points --- among them ISL franchises having a 10-year immunity clause beginning 2014 --- officials at AIFF have been busy highlighting the recommendatory nature of the AFC-Fifa report.
“The structure for next season is still under discussion. Hopefully by the end of this month (March), the final structure will be laid out,” said Kushal Das, the AIFF general secretary.
Requesting anonymity because nothing is finalised, an AIFF official said a 12-team ISL with Mohun Bagan and East Bengal is likely with other I-League clubs in the second tier, which could be called League 1. That could exclude the team coached by Nawas who said ideally the top tier should have 20 teams.