Difference - ISL had new teams, ESL has existing clubs

Difference - ISL had new teams, ESL has existing clubs

Perhaps the biggest difference between ISL and ESL lies in the role clubs have played in its formation.

For ISL, it was a case of FSDL trying to create a clone of the IPL. They made the league first, then invited bids to form the franchises. The prominent brand and the driving force of the endeavour was ISL itself, with its teams simply playing the part of cogs in the wheel. They didn't even become actual football clubs until later; they were just entities representing certain cities that FSDL deemed would make most financial sense. The TV scoreboard during the game didn't even mention the team's name, instead naming the city, state or region it was based in. The message was clear - FSDL wanted fans to get hooked to the daily evening entertainment package of the ISL; the clubs were disposable tools; especially in the early years when they hadn't yet fully formed their own cultural and commercial identities and depended on the ISL brand to give them some prestige as part of that "elite group." That approach has changed somewhat with some of the original franchises closing shop or relocating, and independent clubs like East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Bengaluru FC joining the ISL, but traces of that initial philosophy still remain in the management of the competition.

But for ESL, things are the exact opposite. Here, the clubs - some of the very biggest in the world with hundreds of millions of fans across the globe - are the driving force behind the competition. In fact, ESL is designed to serve these clubs' financial interests. And the only way ESL can achieve its financial targets is by overwhelming the UEFA by bagging 15 of their top 20 clubs - their biggest revenue generators - as their "founding members."

The clubs are meant to serve ISL, but ESL exists to serve its core group of clubs. That's a stark difference in the characteristics of these two right there.