AIFF decision leaves players in the limbo, with uncertainty looming
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In the best of times, it is apt not to compare with any sport in India with cricket. In the worst of times, it becomes a challenge to walk on eggshells and still avoid comparison with cricket. Let us consider for a fleeting moment the price Board of Control for Cricket in India would have to pay if it did not conduct IPL or Ranji Trophy over a season and left the players in the lurch.
The All India Football Federation (AIFF) leadership can consider itself lucky that not much attention is being paid to the decision to put the Indian Soccer League (ISL) 2025-26 season on hold, ostensibly because Supreme Court observed that AIFF’s Masters Rights Agreement with its marketing partner cannot be renewed until the Court had delivered a verdict in a larger matter.
Is this what players signed up for? An uncertainty worse than any other? Dark clouds that threaten to hover longer than anyone would anticipate? To be left to their own devices with no hope of looking for employment elsewhere? To be told to cool their heels, and steel their hearts and have a prayer on their lips?
It is not as if a fortnight-long tournament has been cancelled. But it is more like a lockout has been declared, not just one factory but on a whole industry itself. Yet, there seems a strange collective urge to shrug shoulders and wait for things to get better in the days ahead rather than take concrete steps to resolve the impasse.
Clubs have done little more than urge All India Football Federation (AIFF) and its marketing partner Football Sports Development Ltd. (FSDL), to swiftly end the imbroglio. While there is an awareness that players, coaches and support staff are worried, hurt and scared about the uncertainty, the appeal from the biggest names is for everyone to stay calm and ride the storm together.
Sadly, there does not seem to be a strong enough leadership within the players’ community. India is only too aware of the power of the athletes to draw attention to issues they face. But there is no sign of any player wanting to take the lead in highlighting their plight. Back in 1961, Jimmy Hill shook the foundations of English Premier League football as chairman of the players’ association.
If there is an Athletes’ Commission in AIFF, it has remained inconspicuous in the hour of the biggest crisis in the lives of scores of players and the entire ISL ecosystem. There is little sign of backroom conversations -- not even whispers -- but an almost helpless resignation that a decision is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
There is also a very strange radio silence from a vast majority of the sports fraternity, including high- profile lawyers who have claimed their hearts beat for the athletes in the country. Does not the situation that the players now find themselves in move them to at least make polite noises on social media? Apparently not.
Be that as it may, a responsible organisation would have concluded negotiations to extend its contract with its marketing partner at least a year before it became due to lapse so that there could be a seamless transition. Negotiations had started between AIFF and FSDL but for reasons best known to the AIFF leadership, things ground to a standstill.
Viewed against that backdrop, AIFF should have intimated the teams the players that the 2025-26 season would be a non-starter. It would have allowed the players and, for a good measure, those dependent on them, time to find alternatives to keep the home fires burning. To keep them tethered only to unleash uncertainty on them in the eleventh hour comes across as grossly unfair.
It would be wrong to attribute the delay and the eventual breakdown to the pending case in the Supreme Court. While the Court had observed that it would be improper for AIFF to make any major decisions, it did not pass any order to that effect. AIFF could have concluded a deal with FSDL, subject to approval by the general body after passing the Court-approved constitution.
There can be no doubt that football has the largest audience in the country – after cricket, that is. It is another matter that the football team has not delivered the kind of results that its cricket counterpart has on the international stage. But that should not take away from the vast fan following the sport has, being one of the reasons for high player salaries in the sport.
Someone must step up and think about the players, their families, and others dependent on earnings from plying their trade. It may seem as if it is only a few scores of players, coaches and support staff who are on the rosters of the 13 teams, but if AIFF cannot find ways to get the tournament off the ground in a season, its leadership deserves more than just a gentle rap on its knuckles.
It can only be hoped that the cloud lifts soon and that the football economy, spawned by ISL, regains its footing. Everyone, including the officials of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, seems to be waiting for the Supreme Court to deliver its judgement before the football players, coaches, their dependents, and countless others in the industry, can breathe again.
