ISL to drop playoffs from next edition

THE INDIAN SUPER LEAGUE is taking more steps towards framing itself as a legitimate football league; they are set to drop the playoffs at the end of regular season from the 2017-18 edition.

The ISL had semi-finals and a final amongst the top four teams at the end of each double leg round robin formatted season, and the winner of the final was crowned champions. This, however, saw to it that the best team in ISL never became the champion. Mid table teams came through and won the competition, sometimes by playing negative football and in one case by penalties.

The presence of playoffs also coloured the matches towards the end of the regular season where topping the table often took a back seat to franchises' concerns for playing a conservative game and resting their key players for the playoffs, resulting in lower quality matches and a less interesting points table. And while there were monetary rewards for the table toppers, they still ended the tournament without a silverware.

But finally, ISL decided to take the positive step to remove the playoffs and adopt the format of a pure league. They decided to do it along with dropping the mandatory marquee rule and reducing the number of foreigners in ISL teas.

These decisions were taken before AIFF's all stakeholder meeting in the presence of AFC and FIFA representatives, meant to pursuade AFC to grant them an AFC spot. That attempt has reportedly failed, but the fans will hope that ISL sticks to its decision of moving to a pure league format from its fourth edition onwards.

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