NEW DELHI: Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya asked the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and ISL clubs to create a task force that would thrash out a “structured plan” for at least the next two seasons of the crisis-ridden league in a meeting here on Monday.
The deliberation session that lasted a couple of hours in the afternoon was “cordial”, according to well-placed sources and the minister urged the clubs and the AIFF to work out an “amicable business model” for the 14-club Indian Super League (ISL).
“He has asked the AIFF and the ISL clubs to make this task force that would plan the league for the next two years and also commercial plan for it. He has asked them to do this as soon as possible and come back to him with an amicable business model,” a well-placed source told PTI.
It was Mandaviya’s intervention that made the 2025-26 season a reality, albeit truncated, after the clubs and the AIFF failed to resolve the financial crisis that was triggered by Reliance Group-backed FSDL’s exit as commercial partner in December last year.
Currently, the clubs and the AIFF are locked in a feud on the new commercial model. The clubs want a self-regulated system.
They have submitted a two-year club-led pilot model for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 seasons as an interim solution “designed to stabilise the competition, generate commercial value, and test a modern governance framework before any consideration is given to long-term commercial arrangements”.
The clubs also proposed to acquire the commercial rights of the ISL for this two-year period for an aggregate consideration of Rs 15 crore per year payable to AIFF so as to cover the costs associated with the regulatory functions that the national federation “is required to discharge in its capacity as the governing body, including refereeing, legal, integrity and anti-doping support”.
“The minister told the two parties that ISL is a major commercial venture and livelihoods depend on it. The good thing was that everyone seemed to be solution oriented instead of trying to blaming each other,” the source said.
All 14 clubs were represented in the meeting and there were AIFF officials including its embattled President Kalyan Chaubey.
Earlier this year, the AIFF had floated tenders for the long-term commercial rights of the ISL and London-headquartered Genius Sports had emerged as the highest bidder in March, promising Rs 2,129 crore annually for ISL and a cup competition for the next 15+5 years, including 5% increase per year. That amounted to around Rs 64 crore per year.
Under the revenue sharing model as per the Genius Sports bid, the AIFF was to get Rs 12.4 crore in the first year. The AIFF also wanted to charge the clubs an entry fee, a proposal that has not found favour with the ISL clubs.
During its Special General Body Meeting in Kolkata last month, the AIFF had decided that its Executive Committee will take a final decision on the new commercial partner later on.
The ISL is set to run from September 1 to April 11 as per the AIFF’s tentative calendar for the 2026-27 season.
It is expected to be a full seven-month season. East Bengal FC were crowned the champions for the first time in the history of ISL ahead of arch-rivals Mohun Bagan Super Giant with the winners being decided on the concluding day of the league last month.
This season’s ISL was held in a single-leg round-robin format where all 14 participating teams competed against each other once. A total of 91 matches were played across the season, with each team playing 13 games.
PTI