ISL, I-League Merger: After DHC-caused delay, AFC finally ready to submit recommendations to AIFF

THE LONG AWAITED RECOMMENDATIONS about the resturcturing of India's league football are finally about to reach the AIFF.

The Asian Football Confeferation (AFC), has been taking an active interest in how the professional league football will be conducted in India, especially since they created a joint task force with the All India Football Federation which made them a part of the process.

Officials of AFC along with FIFA representatives visited India multiple times over the last year. They held meetings, visited several clubs across the country and spoke to both I-League clubs and ISL franchises regarding how best to approach it.

During this time, senior AFC officials including General Secretary Dato Windsor expressed interest in working out a formula where a unified league can become the new top division league where the ISL franchises as well as several independent clubs from I-League, the existing top flight league, can participate.

To arrive at that perfect formula, the committee has spent the last several months holding a survey of footballers, club officials and other stakeholders of Indian football across the country. Now, with the groundwork finally complete, TFG has learned that the AFC is very close to sending its findings and recommendations to AIFF.

The process was expected to have been completed by October but things got stalled due to a Delhi High Court decision temporarily set aside the election of current AIFF President Praful Patel and several of the top brass. Later, a Supreme Court bench allowed the Federation officials to carry out duties till a new election takes place in a few months. This allowed the aforementioned process to resume.

The AFC faces a tricky task since the crux of the matter hangs around the cannonization of Indian Super League as the new top division league, which implies that several current top division clubs may be forcefully relegated. I-League East Bengal and Mohun Bagan have been in talks with IMG-Reliance about moving to ISL like Bengaluru FC did earlier this year. But both the Kolkata clubs want an exemption from paying the Rs 15 crore franchise fee required to play in the ISL and they are also not ready to move out of their home city of Kolkata till 2019, which the ISL's "one city one club" rule requires them to do.

This impasse coupled with other reasons forced AFC and AIFF to arrive at a short term solution where they decided to hold I-League and ISL simultaneously for the 2017-18 season, and ISL was given a provisional recognition as a Federation Cup replacement, which meant the winners could play in the AFC Cup Qualifiers, while the AFC Champions League qualifiers berth remained with the top flight I-League.

Although the AFC will send in its suggestions as a uniform set of solutions, the AIFF (and their commericial partners IMG-Reliance) have the right to modify, accept or reject any term recommended by the continental football body.

It remains to be seen what stance AFC takes in its report about issues like forceful relegation and the return of promotion-relegation in the Indian football league system; and whether AIFF and IMG-R honour their position or not. 

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