Top football clubs at loggerheads with AIFF over long-term league future

Panaji: The trust deficit between India’s top-tier football clubs and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) is wider than ever before, after the governing body unilaterally invited bids for commercial rights of its properties, including the Indian Super League, where clubs fund 60% of the costs.
For the first time, AIFF has not publicly provided details about the Request For Quotation (RFQ) that was floated on March 2. However, deputy secretary general M Satyanarayan is on record that the crucial tender is for “15+5 years” without any base price. Interested parties can get the document for Rs 2.5 lakh and then bid for 30% commercial rights.
The clubs, who are now majority partners in organising the top tier league, said they were in the dark about the 44-page tender document, with none of them informed in advance about its publication or a draft circulated for review.
“To proceed with such a foundational document without even circulating it to clubs, who are funding 60% of the league’s costs, demonstrates a complete disconnect between financial contribution and decision-making authority,” 12 of the 14 ISL clubs wrote to AIFF deputy secretary general M Satyanarayan on Friday. “It is untenable for AIFF to assume that clubs will continue to bear 60% of operational costs while having no visibility or say in the league’s long-term commercial and governance future.”
The clubs said the long-term future of the ISL cannot be determined without the clubs being taken into confidence.
“If AIFF views the ISL as a purely AIFF league, then AIFF must bear the corresponding financial burden. If AIFF views it as a partnership, then partnership must exist in both economics and decision-making. The present posture satisfies neither standard.
“If clubs are bearing 100% of operational exposure and 60% of economic risk, then governance cannot remain 100% unilateral. The financial contribution was accepted as a burden-sharing mechanism for the survival of the league, not as a surrender of governance rights,” said the clubs.
According to sources, NorthEast United and Jamshedpur FC did not sign the letter.
The clubs are also understood to have had a meeting with senior AIFF officials later in the day but were told that the RFQ document will not be shared with them for fear of getting leaked. Instead, there were suggestions that the clubs can together pool the money and pick up the document.
Meanwhile, the clubs have also raised concerns over the financial model and wondered how the federation earns a surplus of Rs 3.4 crore, even after publicly stating before the sports minister that it would not “make a rupee” out of the ISL this year.
“It is unacceptable that, in a force majeure–like interim season not attributable to any fault of the clubs, the federation extracts profit while clubs absorb unprecedented financial strain,” said the clubs.