New Delhi, Dec 4: Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya stepped in to resolve the crisis in Indian football by holding meetings with its many stakeholders here on Wednesday, promising a way out of the ongoing policy paralysis and state of financial disaster but not before asking pointed questions on what led to the current situation.The meetings featured All India Football Federation’s under-fire president Kalyan Chaubey, representatives of the currently on-hold Indian Super League clubs and I League clubs, prospective commercial partners, Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), which is AIFF’s commercial partner till December 8, and some OTT platforms.
An official, who attended the meeting, said the minister started by asking how Indian football ended up in such a mess, a question which did not fetch any clear answers from those present.
“Minister asked ‘Why is indian football facing a situation where nobody is willing to become its commercial partner?’ Ranjit Bajaj, who runs I-League club Delhi FC, said one of the big reasons is that not enough has been done for grassroots development,” said an official.
A ministry source later confirmed that Mandaviya did in fact grill the AIFF officials and club representatives on why the situation was allowed to “spiral out of control.”
Indian domestic football plunged into chaos after FSDL informed the AIFF in July that it was keeping the country’s top-tier league, the ISL, on hold due to a lack of clarity over the renewal of the 15-year Master Rights Agreement (MRA) that ends on December 8. Supreme Court appointed (Retd) Justice Nageswara Rao to oversee the hunt for a new commercial partner. But after the tender for ISL’s commercial rights got no takers, Justice Rao recommended to the Supreme Court to strike a balance between “preserving” the AIFF’s authority and keeping in mind prospective bidders’ commercial interests as the current set-up does not give them a say in the running of league operations.