Can somebody clarify my doubts : As per newspaper reports, Mumbai City FC and FC Goa were forced to take Freddy Ljunberg and Robert Pires respectively as their marquee players from the IMG pool, since these clubs had missed the deadline for signing the marquee player on their own. Why this rule does not apply to the Chennai team???? They are still on look out for marquee??? Whats going on!!! Why dump these thrash on Mumbai and Goa teams?
Not surprised about the Hockey India League. First off, it is normal for all sports leagues, franchise or not, to see massive losses and some disbandments early on. Also the system for the HIL is pretty bad. They only play for a month every year... how can you create fans for life with that? How can you create hype? How can you do anything with that? That is my short fear with ISL but I am resting assured on the fact that there are reports on people wanting to expand and extend the ISL long term.
A franchise league can work but there needs to be a lot of planning for the short, long, and middle term. There needs to be pure commitment from all parties. And there needs to be acceptance that at first, things will be a struggle. Losses will be made, hype will be lost, controversy will arise, and teams leaving will also happen but what matters is how you move past it.
It will be interesting to see how the Hockey India League handle this. Personally, I would like to see the Hockey India League be expanded to 3-4 months but I know that can't happen due to the window the HIL is given... but that is simply not enough.
I don't understand why a franchise from Ranchi would be replaced by one from Pune? The answers to this question also will answer the ills of HIL.
I think there is no research on which are the viable cities to offer for franchises. Ranchi was probably selected because of availability of the tribal population around the area. That can be accepted. But in that case, HIL should stick to the city and line up other parties if the current franchisee leaves. Running to Pune means Ranchi's potentials were not adequately studied. This gives a weak spread of the league.
@arsenalfan700, they mentioned that the losses are beyond their expectation (obviously they had some calculations), also HIL not leaving much avenues for revenue earnings.
@ArsenalFan700 ; @Deb_Ban ; You need to understand the situation of Corporates who are Franchise owners in HIL. Government has changed after elections and they all are politically connected people. Delhi franchise owners-Wave Group. Main owner Mr Chadha was shot dead just few days before 1st HIL. The Business is going down and they may not continue as his son is the new head. Lucknow Franchise owner- Subrata Roy Sahara Group. In Prison. ha ha ha Multi Scam artist. All bills unpaid and all cheques bounce. Sahara Group put his name in IPL Pune Cricket Stadium and did not pay the money-cheques bounced. Now his name is removed from there also. Ranchi Rhinos - Gujarat based Patel group and Taiwan based Uniexcel company. No base in Ranchi and they are now not interested. Punjab -Jaypee Group and Bhubaneswar -Government agency supported are still stable. By contrast WSH owners were more stable but that league crashed.
League is short because FIH has given a very short window. These players are playing in the leagues in their country year long. Plus FIH organises so many country wise competitions and then there are continental events like asian , commonwealth, olympics etc.
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Delhi franchise owners-Wave Group. Main owner Mr Chadha was shot dead just few days before 1st HIL. The Business is going down and they may not continue as his son is the new head.
Lucknow Franchise owner- Subrata Roy Sahara Group. In Prison. ha ha ha Multi Scam artist. All bills unpaid and all cheques bounce. Sahara Group put his name in IPL Pune Cricket Stadium and did not pay the money-cheques bounced. Now his name is removed from there also.
Ranchi Rhinos - Gujarat based Patel group and Taiwan based Uniexcel company. No base in Ranchi and they are now not interested.
Punjab -Jaypee Group and Bhubaneswar -Government agency supported are still stable.
By contrast WSH owners were more stable but that league crashed.
League is short because FIH has given a very short window. These players are playing in the leagues in their country year long. Plus FIH organises so many country wise competitions and then there are continental events like asian , commonwealth, olympics etc.