Regardless of what happens till 2022, we will mess up our football future if we remain undecided and continue with both I-league and Ambani League. If nothing, players will be burnt out. We need to sort it out ASAP, like in 2016 itself.
@Goalkeeper I meant to not have a 2nd Division if the ISL ever dies and we decide to focus on I-League only. For now, with the way things are, keep the 2nd Division for clubs like Lonestar Kashmir.
The best solution either make ISL a PROPER league( it is an advertisement or promo as of now not real football) with few inclusions from I league and make I league the 2 tier ( with no pro/rel to tier 1), I league 2 the 3 rd tier and so on. We may have 5 foreigners in our starting line up ( with 7 registered ) , I league with 2 foreigners, and div 2 with no foreigners. ISL reserve teams( u19 ) in state leagues. Other way is scrap ISL and include some ISL teams( FC Goa, Kerala blasters , Delhi dynamos) in I league , reorganise it, restructure it. Now question of viability. Top tier can attract good sponsorships and crowd. Lower tier needs to be a proper league style. Not like a tournament of 1/2 month duration. Don't know how the businesses model will work. I mean investment profit etc.
The I-League will never properly survive as a 2nd Division. If ISL does win out then get rid of the I-League and start focusing on the state leagues, do what Australia did and organize the state leagues under one entity like the National Premier Leagues but do it slowly.
Eventually, after say 15-20 years, you can see if you can start a new national 2nd Division which can feature teams from around India in a conference format from cities which are not big enough for the ISL.
@Footydip, your idea of scrapping ISL has my second . My teams would be FC Goa, Kerala Blasters (even with their shit name!), and Chennaiyin FC. But they will have to build proper infra.
Maddie are you hoping or you have some inside info regarding ileague relegation for the year. Its good news if it would be true. As far as ISL goes, it such a gravy train for too many important people to close down anytime soon. Although i would have wished that it had got a July-September window with only under 22 players Indian players allowed in the ISL tamasha. Atleast the youngsters won't have fatigue issue and would get some good match practice. Strangely it would also help ISL, by reducing the overheads, but not gonna happen as there is a faint chance it might actually do some good to Indian football.
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Other way is scrap ISL and include some ISL teams( FC Goa, Kerala blasters , Delhi dynamos) in I league , reorganise it, restructure it.
Now question of viability. Top tier can attract good sponsorships and crowd. Lower tier needs to be a proper league style. Not like a tournament of 1/2 month duration.
Don't know how the businesses model will work. I mean investment profit etc.