As explained earlier, Indian football’s big meeting with the Asian Football Confederation involving the All India Football Federations, representatives from ISL and I-League clubs, officials of FSDL which runs the ISL and the Football Players Association of India proved to be a damp squib with no consensus reached on a way forward.
The stalemate between the two leagues continues with the I-League clubs arguing that an unified league would be the best solution along with the waiver of the franchise fee a demand on the grounds that these clubs were already a part of the official top division of the country.
In the meeting chaired by AFC General Secretary Dato Windsor, it was agreed by the AFC that the 100 years of legacy that the two Kolkata giants, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan represented, could not be tossed aside as well as Aizawl’s legitimate claim to the top division on the basis that they are the defending I-League champions.
Speaking to the-afc.com, Windsor said, “There was a desire by people, who are extremely passionate about the game, to marry the strengths of both the traditional and the new, which helped in delivering the objectives of the meeting in which the AFC listened to the key stakeholders.”
Kushal Das, the AIFF General Secretary, added: “We are grateful to the AFC for facilitating the meeting which is crucial to the development of football in India. We must go through this process to create the best future for the game in our country. In the meantime, we have to decide on the short-term future of the game as soon as possible.”
This means that with the AFC refusing to take a concrete stand on giving the ISL an official stand, the stand-off is likely to continue for the time being. The “short-term future” as described by Das could mean that ISL continue as a two and a half month-long tournament after the completion of the the FIFA Under-17 World Cup 2017, followed by the I-League.