Sports Minister leads talks to end Indian football impasse, confronts AIFF on issues

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 like Fancode.

"The minister heard all the stakeholders and took down their inputs. He has made it clear that the stalemate will not continue for long now and a plan to end the deadlock will be out in the next few days. Today's meeting was about taking stock and listening to everyone's versions," a ministry source told PTI.

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.