Nope, it doesn't need to! You can merge the two leagues but costs have to be scaled down. Not even BCCI would pull off two T20 cricket tourneys in a year, sustaining a 6-7 months ISL would mean budgets exceeding 150 crores/year for franchises. That's a sure shot way to disaster and also Star falling foul of BCCI.
A merged league for me would have DD, one Mumbai team, one from Pune, FC Goa, Chennai, Blasters, BFC, EB and MB, one from Shillong, one from Mijoram and one from Guwahati.
I agree on the merger but honestly you don't need 150 crore budgets to sustain a 6-7 month I-League. It'll be complicated but ideally if things can be done with a "slow and steady approach" then it can work out.
Don't think FSD would do that but that is my way at least. I also don't think Mizoram will get a franchise.
Scaling down costs will help spread the league. Right now neither the I-League or ISL looks sustainable or beneficial respectively. And we end up loosing to Guam.
It's an expensive business running football clubs Enthusiasm runs high in initial years but soon enough reality comes back to bite you. The leagues have to be merged and cost sanctions have to be implemented. Else we will have the biggest derby in Asia and loads of celebs and fire works without getting out of the football dungeon.
Again the premise here is that ISL is serious about football development. From 1 year experience nothing suggests it to be true. #ISL was pitched as a purely business enterprise with minimum investments (using existing infra with incremental improvements as much as possible being govt/fifa funded). The idea was to channelise the love for eurpean soccer amongst the city elites. Development of Indian football, if any, tangential/incidental in the IMG run AIFF. MLS/A league/J league always had the goal of development of football in USA/Auss/Japan respectively as their primary objective and hence they were sustainable and #ISL like conflict of interest didn't arise. Lets accept #ISL is here to stay, looking at the people backing it. Just look at the no. of comments by AIFF/IMG (which owns AIFF) on the latest FIFA ranking. #ISL auctions are on the way and in no way can anything go wrong there, can it??
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A merged league for me would have DD, one Mumbai team, one from Pune, FC Goa, Chennai, Blasters, BFC, EB and MB, one from Shillong, one from Mijoram and one from Guwahati.
Don't think FSD would do that but that is my way at least. I also don't think Mizoram will get a franchise.