Sunil Chhetri has made an emotional appeal to the Tata Group to reconsider its decision to end Jamshedpur FC’s senior-team operations, warning that the company’s absence from the top level of Indian football would be a “disaster with no alternative”.
The former India captain reacted after Jamshedpur FC confirmed that it would not participate in the Indian Super League from the 2026-27 season onwards. The decision has left the club’s players and staff facing uncertain futures and, unless reversed, brought an end to Tata Steel’s nine-season presence in India’s top division.
“It takes a lot to be a stakeholder in Indian football. It has been like that for some time now. But when everything around looks like it will crumble, you bank on family to hold on to each other,” Chhetri wrote on X.
Referring to Tata’s long association with the sport, first through the Tata Football Academy and later Jamshedpur FC, Chhetri described the group as one of Indian football’s pillars.
“To know that Jamshedpur has folded first team operations is a punch to the gut. The players and staff will be without clubs, and they might find one by the end of it all. The League will have a team less, but the season will go on,” he said.
“However, not having the TATA group involved in the top tier of Indian football – that would be a disaster with no alternative.”
Chhetri asks Tata to choose heart over head
Chhetri acknowledged that the decision may have been driven by commercial considerations but urged Tata’s leadership to look beyond the balance sheet at a particularly fragile moment for the domestic game.
“I understand that some tough decisions in sport are down to what makes sense in the board room. But I can only request and hope that the think tank at TATA picks their heart over head and reconsiders this call,” he said. “It might be a poor business decision, but it will be the one Indian football needs the most at this hour.”
Jamshedpur FC did not pay the first ₹55 lakh instalment required to confirm participation under the ISL’s new club-led model, despite receiving an extension until July 31. The club subsequently informed the All India Football Federation that it would withdraw from the league.
However, the participation payment was only the immediate trigger. In a communication to the AIFF, club chief executive Mukul Choudhari said Jamshedpur Football and Sporting Private Limited had been unable to generate sufficient cash flow and remained almost entirely dependent on its shareholders for operating funds. The shareholders considered the existing ISL model structurally financially unviable for the foreseeable future.
The development comes only weeks after the AIFF and the clubs announced a new system under which the teams would collectively hold the ISL’s commercial rights, while the federation retained administrative control. The clubs were expected to secure a broadcaster and sponsorships for a full home-and-away season.
Jamshedpur FC have said that payments owed under existing contracts to players, coaches and support staff will be honoured. Tata’s youth and grassroots work will also continue through the Tata Football Academy and other development programmes.
Tata Football Academy was established in 1987 and has produced more than 150 players who went on to represent India. Jamshedpur FC entered the ISL in 2017 and won the League Winners’ Shield under Owen Coyle in the 2021-22 season. It is that history which gives Chhetri’s intervention its weight. His appeal is not merely about preserving one team in the league, but about preventing one of Indian football’s longest-serving institutional supporters from abandoning the professional game.