THE FORMAL PROCESS for inducting East Bengal into the ISL has begun with FSDL inviting bids for one new team in the league.
League organizers Football Sports Development Limited have issued an invitation for bids to add one more franchise in the Indian Super League from the 2020-21 season onwards, and mentioned six cities in it: Delhi, Ludhiana, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Silliguri and Bhopal.
But there's little doubt left that this late bid invitation is about getting the popular club East Bengal, who announced the signing of a new prime investor this week, into the league this season.
This is the first time that FSDL have invited bids from a city where an ISL team already exists. Although the infamous "one city one club" rule expired in 2019, FSDL had not created the conditions for there to be more than one ISL team per city until now.
With Mohun Bagan already in ISL, and East Bengal about to follow suit, Kolkata is close to becoming the first city in India that officially marks the end of the old protectionist rule used by ISL.
The deadline for submitting the bid document is at 5 pm on September 14th and according to reports, the final result of the bid evaluation process will be out by September 25th.