SUNBURNT TERRACE- AFC / FIFA report wants to fix Indian football, but can't be tough on the timeline

THE LONG AWAITED REPORT on the Indian domestic football structure by the team of representatives from AFC and FIFA has finally arrived, and its recommendations are interesting, both in their tone and approach to enforcing solutions.

Alex Phillips (AFC, seconded from UEFA) and Nic Coward (FIFA Consultant) were leading the team sent in to talk to Indian football stakeholders at various levels. They went around the country, speaking to clubs in I-League, ISL and the 2nd Division League, assessing the situation and trying to figure out how to solve the issue of Indian football having two parallel leagues - I-League and the ISL - instead of having a unified league system like the rest of the world.

In November, TFG reported that the data gathering process was over and the delegation was preparing to submit their report. They did forward their report to AIFF, and it has finally been leaked to Hindustan Times.

The crux of the report can be broken down to four core stances taken by the delegation, based on their findings and conversations with stakeholders across the board -

i) India should have a unified league system.
ii) There should be promotion-relegation across all divisions.
iii) Monopolistic practices like 'one-city-one-team' and pay-to-play system (franchise fee) need to go.
iv) The all-encompassing deal between IMG-Reliance and AIFF that allowed the private corporation to have practically unlimited power over how football is run in this country needs to be reviewed.

These stances from FIFA and AFC are more or less expected; they could not possibly endorse the current league system in India which blatantly flouts global norms in league football and allows IMG-Reliance, a private corporation, to run the domestic sport like a monopoly. From sidelining the top division I-League and re-directing all the sponsorship and attention to the privately owned ISL, exercising control over the ISL franchises that does not let them act as independent football clubs to monopolising the player transfer market by holding a draft that excludes the top flight clubs and deprives players of the right to choose which team they play for; these are all dangerous trends that if allowed to continue will be replicated all over the world by similar private interests and FIFA will lose control over the sport.

But what makes this report more interesting is the way it suggests solutions; particularly, the timeline of it.

Let's look at suggestion one, and this is the point that's making the headlines: India should have a unified league by 2019-20 or Indian clubs might get banned by FIFA.

Why 2019-20? Why not now? We know that both ISL franchises and I-League clubs have been priming for a unification for a while now; we damn near came close to having a unified league in 2017-18! That effort went to waste due to three reasons:

i) AIFF and IMG-Reliance wanted to make ISL the top league by just adding East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Bengaluru FC as fee-paying franchises. Aizawl FC, the then top division league champions, threatened to launch a massive fan protest if they were forcefully relegated to second tier, and this caught AIFF off guard.

ii) The one-city-one-team rule created a conflict between ISL franchise ATK and I-League clubs East Bengal & Mohun Bagan. ATK told EB & MB to leave Kolkata if they made a switch to ISL. The two top flight clubs, who had grown Kolkata football for over a century, naturally refused to leave their home city, creating an impasse.

iii) A bunch of East Bengal and Mohun Bagan officials, scared of losing their power in the club if a new professional management was put in place, sabotaged the negotiations with ISL by turning it into a public protest.

But all that meant that the talks had already progressed to advanced stages to facilitate the restructuring. Surely, with 5-6 months left for the next season to begin, AFC and FIFA could have insisted on getting on with it in 2018-19 itself? Why wait another year?

The answer to that lies in the subsequent suggestions, and they reveal the actual approach of AFC & FIFA beyond taking idealistic stances - when it comes to actually solving this crisis, they do not want to rock the boat.

Suggestion two is a prime example of that. It says, the 'one-city-one-team' rule, which is driving the wedge between East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and ATK, should be abolished from 2019-20.

The funny thing is, as per the original ISL contracts, this rule which granted ISL franchises exclusivity over an area of 50 km radius, was only enforcable for 5 years. So, it was going to expire from 2019-20 anyway. AFC and FIFA are only recommeding what IMG-Reliance already decided back in 2014.

Suggestion three is also similar in tone. It says, from 2019-20 the new unified top division league should have at least 12 teams, 10 being the existing ISL franchises, 1 being the I-League champion of 2018-19 and the other being the I-League runner-up or picked up through an open action. The new entrants would pay a franchise fee.

This is also directly out of the IMG-Reliance playbook. They have wanted to implement this plan from as early as 2017. It would allow them to maintain their monopolistic practices keeping ISL closed, charging franchise fee and still have ISL being appointed as the new top division league of the country. They mainly want either East Bengal or Mohun Bagan to win the I-League, so that another Aizawl FC protest scenario does not arise. It almost happened this season, again, but Minerva Punjab spoiled that scene by taking the crown. MPFC do not have the means to pay about Rs 15 crore as franchise fee for an ISL entry, and looking at their small support base, it's unlikely IMG-Reliance will be interested in trying to help them find a corporate sponsor the way they have tried to help East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. So, it's in their interest to wait another year and hope for one of the Kolkata giants to win the league so that they don't appear to be trying to relegate the champions.

Here, it's important to note that AIFF and IMG-Reliance are not duty-bound to follow the recommendations of this AFC and FIFA delegation. They reserve the right to pick and choose or modify the suggestions before implementing them. So they may well decide not to guarantee a spot for the I-League champions in the new unified league (ISL). They only want that option on the table so that the global PR nightmare that arised from trying to relegate champions Aizawl FC does not happen again. 

The other reason they want this on the table is because it will give the appearance of I-League clubs being "promoted" to ISL. This will project ISL as the superior league, which is necessary for its brand image; something that AIFF tried to accomplish by making ISL teams play I-League clubs (artificially weakened by the ISL-only player draft) and it majorly backfired when small budget I-League clubs routinely beat or gave hard competition to high profile ISL teams.

But let's look at what this suggestion from AFC and FIFA ultimately means: they are endorsing IMG-Reliance's plan to forcefully relegate independent top division clubs to the second tier. Most I-League clubs will be made to play in the League One below ISL; which may turn out to be the biggest mass relegation of clubs - who earned the right to play in the top division with their on-field performance - in the history of modern football. Then, in the immediate future, they will have no means to win their way back to the top division since ISL will continue to be a closed league. And this is being endorsed by AFC & FIFA.

The report, however, does recommend bringing back promotion-relegation to the top division. Suggestion three says, the unified top league (ISL) should be expanded to 16 clubs by 2021-22 or 2022-23 (in case of a delay). Following this, two of the bottom table clubs should get relegated, and the top two clubs from League One should come up to the top.

This suggestion is important for two reasons - for the first time we have a timeline for the return of promotion-relegation. Ever since the talk of restructuring has begun, the AIFF and IMG-Reliance officials have said they want to eventually bring back pro-rel, but never committed to naming a potential year when it will happen. This left lower league clubs, and the clubs which are going to get forcefully relegated soon, in complete darkness as to when they will be able to compete for a comeback in the top flight; this posed a serious risk of many clubs shutting down or withdrawing from the national scene in the face of an uncertain future, as we have seen over the last few years with the likes of Royal Wahingdoh, Pune FC, Rangdajied United and the Goan clubs (Dempo, Salgaocar, Sporting Clube de Goa). Having a deadline on the table can mitigate that risk.

The ISL franchise contracts are in place for 10 years, which guarantees the teams an immunity for ten ISL seasons, which means the deal expires in 2023-24. If they abolish the immunity from 2021-22, that will be a pleasant surprise, but the suggestions already provide for a delay till 2022-23. It will not be very hard for IMG-Reliance and AIFF to extend that delay till 2023-24, so that the original deals can expire without any issues. This is not necessarily a bad thing; the ISL franchises invested a lot of money and no one should grudge them that extra protection in the initial stages. But what this means is that for 5 years the forcefully relegated clubs may have no way to win their place back in the top tier; this is likely to lead to a stagnant lower league where the clubs just do the bare minimum till the leagues open up. Ultimately, this hurts the uniform player development and competitive process in Indian football.

The straightforward solution to this problem would be to promote one club from League One to ISL every season while having no relegation; but this flies against IMG-Reliance's bottom line of making money through franchise fees. That's probably why the recommendations don't explicitly mention this solution and allow IMG-R to have the leeway to make extra profit through the expansion of ISL by including more paying franchises, instead of bolstering the lower leagues by guaranteeing promotion to the League One winner.

But IMG-Reliance's unrestrained control over Indian football, which disregards meritocracy, crushes independent clubs, sidelines the top division league to prop up its own tournament and puts money above everything else, is another problem that this report has had to address. FIFA and AFC officials have mentioned, in suggestion four, the need to review the 2010 agreement between AIFF and IMG-R. The nod is in the direction of needing AIFF to have more control over the football leagues and recovering enough power to make sure Indian football never has to be dependent on private interests again.

But that, again, is going to happen anyway. AIFF and IMG-Reliance have a 15 year agreement and come 2025 they will have to re-negotiate about potential extension and the terms of the deal. By this time, IMG-R will have made a bunch of profit on their 700 crore investment in Indian football, mostly through ISL franchise fee money and the central sponsorship pool. But most of all, their biggest asset creation will be the ISL brand, which they own. The brand name will be their biggest bargaining chip in the negotiations. If they want they can cash out by selling it back to AIFF or stay on and grow it further. But either way, they are poised to make a major profit through the brand.

This is part of the report's concern: if ISL is to become the new top division league in India, it will be a problem if its brand name belongs to a private corporation (which is very different from it being a separate legal entity like EPL) and not the AIFF. AFC and FIFA want that to get solved. But again, their recommendation is only a hint towards that. It does not try to interfere with the timeline.

In the end, that's what this report does. It's a declaration of AFC and FIFA's moral support for keeping football open and fair in India and around the world, but it's unwilling to be tough on how soon Indian football needs to sort its mess.

And perhaps that's a good thing. FIFA and AFC have been cautious not to appear like they are trying to interfere with what are seen as AIFF's internal matters. Given that posture, the veiled threat of a ban on clubs if there's no unified league from 2019-20 is as tough as we can expect them to be. But by doing so, they have more or less allowed IMG-Reliance to do whatever they want with Indian league football, its re-structuring and deciding who gets to play in which level of domestic football. And there's no guarantee that AIFF and IMG-R will actually implement the timelines suggested in the report; further discussion and diplomatic pressure from AFC and FIFA is required to ensure that this actually happens.

So, for the fans, what we have here is a confirmation that the 'medium term solution' part of the restructuring process is about to get implemented: we will have a split league system for one more season, and most top division league clubs will indeed get forcefully relegated to the second tier.

As for the 'long term solution' where AFC and FIFA want to see a return to meritocracy through promotion-relegation and abolishing franchise fee... we'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

But having a soft timeline on the table is better than having no timeline at all. For those who want a proper long league to be the top flight of Indian football, complete with promotion relegation to ensure open and fair competition, this is progress, and an assurance from the highest level of world football that despite all the effort of those who run the Indian football, the core values of the sport still matter, and need to be implemented if India is to really grow as a footballing nation in a wholesome way.

Then there's also that tiny bit of proclamation from AFC/FIFA that undeniably strikes down 4 years of unceasing propaganda from AIFF and IMG-Reliance: the creation and continued existence of ISL in its current form as a privately owned tournament that undermines the real league system is wrong, and grounds for handing out bans.

UPDATE: Subsequently, top officials from both AFC and AIFF played down the Hindustan Times report alleging that it was not authentic and the report cited in it possibly being an interim draft. But the author was able to independently verify that a report was indeed submitted from the delegation in its final form, and the Hindustan Times report regarding it was correct. 

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