As the marketing partner of AIFF, has IMG-R been audited for full filling its contractual obligations? Which product of AIFF have they marketed or been able to sell? I-League, Federation Cup, I-League second division? All answers are no. Instead they have now created a new product which have no alignment with any roadmap for football development. A 3 month tournament which gets only 100 odd Indian players involved. How does that help us? Yes, there is attention from people but as there is no trickle down effect so don't see local footballers coming up from Kerala or Tamil Nadu or Delhi due to ISL. The Indian audience, which is mostly football ignorant, treats this as another tamasha like the kabaddi league or hockey league and moves on to the next show with Bollywood stars in it, I call it the "wham bam thank you ma'am". Apart from that, this has messed up the calendar and Fed Cup has been closed. The way forward is to normalize the calendar, merge the leagues with AFC criteria upheld and implement cost controls on the clubs so they don't go and incur ₹40 crore losses/3 months.
With 9 clubs left in I-League and 8 ISL franchises, the opportunity of being a professional footballer is being made an unviable option. If kids don't see where they can play they will slack off and disappear into oblivion. We will continue to loose talents who could have helped the NT in coming decades. What's the point of all this academies and youth development if the kids won't have enough clubs to go job hunting for when they graduate?
IS AIFF EVEN WORKING FOR NEXT YEAR'S I LEAGUE? IT STILL DOES NOT HAVE A BROADCASTER. NEITHER DO WE KNOW HOW MANY TEAMS WILL BE PARTICIPATING. BIDS WERE INVITED FOR NEW CLUBS, BUT NO NEWS IN THAT FRONT TOO. WHAT THE HELL ARE THE BOSSES AT AIFF DOING?
THE ONLY HOPE THAT I HAVE IS THAT UNLIKE BHARAT FC, PUNE FC HASN'T RELEASED ITS PLAYERS. THAT IS A FEEBLE SILVER LINING IN THE OTHERWISE DARK CLOUDS THAT SURROUND INDIAN FOOTBALL
How have IMG-Reliance not fulfilled their contractual obligations? They brought in a 3-year TV deal before for the I-League, with local broadcasters as well, and IStream at one point. They brought in HERO as the title sponsor and they were technically obligated/allowed to make their own league, which they did. They even tried to help with the personnel and youth development academies but that is where the AIFF did not step up in.
How are you supposed to see the full trickle down affect yet? In one year? And they can justify it through the rising TAM numbers for the I-League recently and some ISL players coming to I-League. It will work cause this is just a year old league. You won't see much on the youth development front yet. And the football audience is not mainly just in aww of the stars, look at the response from social media of all the ISL things... ya, you have your select few but there are others that also talk about the ISL and the teams like as well, sometimes in some stupid ways but they do it. It is not only a wankfest over Ranbir Kapoor or Sachin Tendulkar.
And ya, the calendar is messed up but who's fault is it really? The AIFF! They are in charge of organizing football in India. Obviously IMG don't care if the Durand Cup happens during ISL so why would they care if CFL or GPL happen during the tournament? They already get super high TV ratings and crowds at the grounds that they did not even expect last season! They overperformed! They have more pressing issues than the fucking Durand Cup or Calcutta Football League!
In fact, they are indirectly doing good from not having I-League right now! Think about it! The best I-League players are with their ISL teams! Why would anyone, during the ISL, care about the I-League teams without their best players? The quality of the game would suffer. This, what is currently happening, is a temporary evil that honestly, I blame IMG for, but blame AIFF a lot more caused they should have planned a lot better than this!
My point is ISL clubs are here now, we like them or not! Let's accept that as a fact and reality. But you need some of the I-League clubs to make any meaningful headway to improve football scene in the country. Just ISL is suicide, a 7 month long ISL would be another I-League in 3 seasons as the losses will run into hundreds of crores. The leagues needs to merge and ISL at its present form needs to shut.
@Arsenalfan Even before IMG we had title sponsors for NFL. I doubt Hero or Airtel's sponsorship of I-League had anything to do with IMGR and not PP's personal influence as a politician and former union minister. Zee Sports, the previous broadcast channel transformed into Ten and continued the broadcast. In between we actually didn't even had a national broadcaster. Ten Group, again based in Maharashtra, PP's home state, is an doubtful addition by IMGR. Our senior NT internatioanl friendly matches are not telecast, not even in DD Sports when we play at home.
The recession has mentioned earlier has been brought by IMGR and they can't provide a solution/way out. AIFF needs a cleanup and that has to start by merging the two leagues, starting age based youth leagues rather than academies and marginalizing IMG-R from Indian football.
What we urgently need is an year long state league with 20 teams, relegation - promotion, local TV broadcast, and which runs irrespective of the scheduling of both ISL and I league. Considering the poor economy of the North East States, there should be a single unified league for all 8 States.
WOOOOOOOOOOOO! I AGREE WITH @EastBengalPride!!!!!!! I actually think you are right, it probably was not even IMG-Reliance who did all this for I-League and there were backdoor and secret deals happening behind the scenes that lead to HERO and TEN etc.
And I agree a lot with that IMG and the AIFF have fucked up with the schedule now and we are in a "recession" period. Look at the comments we got from last season about ISL! There were so many questions over how good it would be quality wise? TV ratings? Crowds? Everything was questioned and that lead to the things like fireworks I feel, overspending on marquees, and sponsors not putting in as much as you would like. They did not know exactly what they were doing at all and now look at where we are!
And sadly we realistically can't see a long-term league till at least probably 2017! And in that time a lot of people, from officials, players, to fans, will be fucked.
Comments
With 9 clubs left in I-League and 8 ISL franchises, the opportunity of being a professional footballer is being made an unviable option. If kids don't see where they can play they will slack off and disappear into oblivion. We will continue to loose talents who could have helped the NT in coming decades. What's the point of all this academies and youth development if the kids won't have enough clubs to go job hunting for when they graduate?
fact also is due to ISL the i-league had more interest. so indirectly it helped i-league in fans and stadium.
IMGR is not responsible for a poor revenue model. PFC/Bharat were always gonna shut shop cos they are never gonna make money.
@Arsenalfan Even before IMG we had title sponsors for NFL. I doubt Hero or Airtel's sponsorship of I-League had anything to do with IMGR and not PP's personal influence as a politician and former union minister. Zee Sports, the previous broadcast channel transformed into Ten and continued the broadcast. In between we actually didn't even had a national broadcaster. Ten Group, again based in Maharashtra, PP's home state, is an doubtful addition by IMGR. Our senior NT internatioanl friendly matches are not telecast, not even in DD Sports when we play at home.
The recession has mentioned earlier has been brought by IMGR and they can't provide a solution/way out. AIFF needs a cleanup and that has to start by merging the two leagues, starting age based youth leagues rather than academies and marginalizing IMG-R from Indian football.
Considering the poor economy of the North East States, there should be a single unified league for all 8 States.