How will you integrate a 2 cr spending football club with 40 cr, asks Praful Patel
Delving deep into the difficulties of forming a unified league, AIFF president Praful Patel has stated that I-League clubs, which spend 2 crores a year, cannot be easily integrated with ISL clubs that spend 40 crores per annum. However, he has revealed that ISL will open window after three years.
The AFC ‘Road Map’, which was authored by Alex Phillips, Head of Asia-Europe Affairs, AFC and Nic Coward, a professional football consultant with FIFA had instructed the All India Football Federation (AIFF) on February 2, 2018, to get a unified league after ISL and the I-League could run parallelly only till the 2018-19 season.
However, the “strict condition” that stated the agreement for the Road Map would be implemented for “the unified system from 2019-20 season and beyond” hasn’t quite worked out with AIFF finding it difficult to merge the two leagues. And Patel has tried to demystify the problem.
"The whole thing is being looked at in a narrow way. You have an ISL, they have a certain financial structure and the I-League has a different structure. You are talking about integrating it, but how will you integrate a club which is spending 2 crore a year with one which is spending 40 crores," said Patel, reported Sportstar.
However, the consequence of not having a unified league by the 2019-20 season would reportedly be “the removal of India from qualification for AFC Club Competitions”. And Patel has stated that a solution could be found in the next three years.
"A solution must be found which is a happy marriage between the two. Otherwise, it will be the same thing, a club with ₹2 crore investment won’t do well and will always run out of steam and go away. The ISL doesn’t mean guaranteed success; they must keep performing to retain public interest. Otherwise, for how many years will they spend ₹30-40 crore.
We had gone to the AFC and said we have the ISL and we want to convert it to a full-fledged league, we have a lot of issues and it will take time."
“Hinting at a possible merger in three years time, Patel added: "In another three or so years – the window opens and you can negotiate with IMG-R to allow and integrate after eight years and not 10. They protect the ISL clubs till year 10 and allow lateral entry from season eight. I-League clubs don’t have telecast, they don’t have schedule. We will format it like the ISL with a complete strategy to market the brand and bring them to a level (by then)," he added.
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