U Mumba football team takes a break

MUMBAI: Just a year after starting their team with promise aplenty, U Mumba have put their football plans on hold. The Ronnie Screwvala-owned USports fielded a team in the Mumbai District Football Association Elite Division last season, and despite doing well (they lost in the semifinal), they've chosen not to field a team for this season, which began on Monday.
USports CEO Supratik Sen told TOI that the reason they started a football team in the first place was so that they could compete at the highest-possible level in India.
The All India Football Federation had earlier this year given U Mumba a verbal go-ahead to hold trials for an I-League team but later told them not to, stating they were still trying to resolve the problem between the Indian Super League (ISL) and the ILeague.
"Look, we had plans of playing in the I-League this season. That's we started a club in Mumbai just to get an experience of running a football club. We tried our best to get a team in the I-League but they weren't accepting new entries. There's not a lot of clarity on many things in Indian football so we decided to put our plans on hold until there's a definitive future," Sen said.
For a direct entry in the MDFA Elite Division, U Mumba had to pay Rs 11 lakhs. While Sen refuses to give the exact figure, he says they've spent close to Rs 50 lakh in running their team (including age-group teams) last season.
"At the end of the day, we have to see what is sustainable. We can't be spending so much money and getting nothing in return. As I've said before, we want to play in the top-most league of the country. Right now it's the ISL and they're not open to new entries currently," Sen said, without ruling out that they could bid for an ISL team in the future.
"We'll cross the bridge when we get to it. As of now, we have nothing planned. All we want to do is play in the top league, he said.