New Delhi: The All India Football Federation and its marketing partners (FSDL) proposed to float a tender for selection of a new commercial entity that will organise the Indian Super League, which could begin by December, to the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The proposal was tabled after the Court directed the AIFF and FSDL to find a way to end the Indian football logjam that has put its top-tier league on an indefinite hold.
The two parties accordingly met on Monday and prepared a proposal that was presented to the apex court where it was agreed to conduct the Super Cup “to ensure the timely commencement of the football calendar and to maintain competitive continuity, it has been agreed that the 2025–26 season may begin with the Super Cup or another domestic competition directly under AIFF’s control, after an adequate pre-season period.
“The Super Cup, being a domestic tournament open to clubs across multiple tiers ensures that the players and clubs remain competitively engaged pending the commencement of the league season.”
The AIFF will conduct an open and competitive tender in search of its next commercial partner and the entire process, which will be concluded by October 15, will be in line with the new National Sports Governance Act 2025, the Sports Code 2011, the federation’s constitution and all relevant FIFA/Asian Football Confederation regulations “…thereby providing certainty to clubs, broadcasters, sponsors, and other stakeholders”.
Reliance-subsidiary FSDL have decided to waive its contractual “right of first negotiation and “right to match” that it enjoyed under the master rights agreement signed with the AIFF on December 8, 2010, as per which the federation receives Rs 50 crore annually from its commercial partners.
FSDL will also no objection for the AIFF to conduct a tender, having already paid it July–September quarterly rights fee of Rs 12.5 crore on August 18. If required, it is also willing to pay in advance the final instalment of Rs 12.5 crore (October–December 2025).
After this process, and under a new commercial partner, the new league season could then commence by December 2025, “subject to the consent of the AFC”, which has demanded a factual report on the ISL.
Senior counsel Prashant Bhushan, representing Delhi FC co-owner Ranjit Bajaj, pointed that since the Court had earlier deemed the Kalyan Chaubey-led AIFF committee an interim one, they might not be eligible to conduct a long-term commercial deal.
‘Long period’
“The new commercial contract will be for a long period, no one will come for short periods,” an AIFF official, who didn’t wish to be identified, told News9 Sports.
FSDL counsel Neerak Kaul told the SC bench of Justice Sri Narasimha & Justice Joymalya Bagchi that the Super Cup could be held in September but the AIFF plans to hold the Super Cup between the two FIFA international windows of October (1-14) and November (10-18).
“Between the two windows, we have about 20 days, in which we would try to slot in the tournament,” the official said, adding that “all the ISL teams might not participate in it.”
On August 7, the AIFF had convince the ISL clubs of playing in the Super Cup in September as they wanted clarity on the ISL. Now that the proposal has been presented to the Court, FSDL will discuss it with the clubs, whose inputs, jointly or separately are awaited.
“Our commitment to Indian football against our own commercial interest, FSDL is enabling AIFF to do this in the larger good of the sport and footballers by giving an NOC and relinquishing its Right of First Negotiation and Matching Right,” a source close to FSDL said.
Next hearing on Monday
The Court had reserved its judgement on AIFF’s long-pending constitution and said a final verdict could be delivered on Monday (September 1), after hearing recommendations Justice L Nageshwar Rao, who had formulated the charter, and recommendations of the new Sports Governance Act that was passed earlier this month.
Since the case has been continuing since 2017, FIFA on Tuesday set a deadline of October 30 to ratify the new constitution, failing which sanctions would be imposed on the AIFF.
Amicus Curiae Gopal Sankaranarayanan referred to the FIFA letter but observed that the world governing body couldn’t dictate terms to the Court.
FIFA had banned India on August 16, 2022, for ‘third-party interference’ after the Court appointed a three-member committee of administrators (CoA) to govern the AIFF.
The ban was lifted when the CoA was dissolved and steps where taken to conduct elections on September 2, when Chaubey was elected president.