No ISL plans, say Chennai City after FC Basel buy stake

: Twenty-time Swiss champions FC Basel have acquired a 26% stake in I-league club Chennai City FC, officials of the two clubs announced here on Wednesday. The investment will see Chennai City set up a residential academy in Coimbatore for the age groups of 10 to 18 as well as launch ‘soccer schools’ across Tamil Nadu. “We want to build our infrastructure and have our youth in one place. We want to have a sustainable model as a club and with their expertise we will have a higher level of professionalism,” said Chennai City owner Rohit Ramesh.

Refusing to divulge the financial details of the deal, Ramesh also refuted suggestions that the new investment could see his Coimbatore-based club target a place in Indian Super League (ISL) in the coming years. “Absolutely not! To be honest, even when I had discussions with my fellow partners, we never talked about ISL. We are very happy where we are. As I said, our focus is on infra and with this collaboration we should be able to focus on that,” he said.

FC Basel president Bernhard Burgener, who was present at the event, said, “This is the first time Basel have become financially active in Asia and we look forward to a successful partnership with Chennai.” Chennai City are currently second in the I-league standings, two points behind leaders Real Kashmir, but have two games in hand over the Srinagar-based outfit.

NEW DELHI