ISL 2018 | Five ISL clubs fail to secure AFC club-licensing criteria for 2018-19 season

But ISL clubs - Kerala Blasters, Mumbai City FC, FC Pune City, Delhi Dynamos and Jamshedpur FC - are the five clubs to have failed the inspection conducted by AIFF officials and hence, have not been awarded the national or the AFC license for the 2018-19 season. Due to their failure to clear inspection, the five Indian outfits will now have to request an exemption from the AIFF in order to take part in the upcoming ISL. As per reports, it is being said that they will be granted an exemption for a year but the clubs will have to pay a hefty fine. 

Meanwhile, FC Goa, ATK and NorthEast United have all cleared the inspection and met the five criteria of the committee and have been awarded an AFC and a National license. 

The fact that five clubs have failed to secure an AFC license came as a shocker as they had all invested crores of money into their respective projects in addition to that, all the clubs were assisted in the licensing process and a deadline was informed well in advance. Licensing workshops were also conducted at all the Indian ISL clubs. Except for Jamshedpur FC, the rest of the clubs that were denied a license have been in existence for over four years.