I-League: Can established clubs learn something from the newcomers?

The 2013/14 edition of the I-League has been an interesting and entertaining affair with new entrants Bengaluru FC being the surprise league leaders after 13 rounds with 27 points to their name.

But it shows a trend over the last few years that newly formed clubs or those who are ready to adopt modern methods of running a club being more successful on and especially off the field.

Pune FC, only founded in 2007 by the Piramal family, is the first and only I-League club to pass the Indian professional club licensing criteria so far. The reward is a playoff spot in the 2014 AFC Champions League and even if they don’t qualify for Asia’s premier club competition they get a spot in the second tier AFC Cup.

Meanwhile the story of Bengaluru FC is even more remarkable as they are only a few months old and have shown off the field what can be done to do real fan interaction, which shows with the Bangalore Football Stadium witnessing good crowds. Bengaluru FC interact with their fans on social media, offer video clips of their matches, tickets are sold across the Garden City and they even organised a bus trip for fans to an away match to Goa besides having other options of fan interaction with the team.

Other clubs are also doing their bit to try out new ideas within Indian football, be it Shillong Lajong FC who have a certain history but on the national scene they are rather a new club.

The traditional clubs of especially Kolkata and Goa haven’t been able to keep up with the new competitors. The Kolkata clubs, who sadly often live of their heritage and history, haven’t won an NFL/I-League title in 10 years; while the Goan clubs are having problems to draw large crowds and engage their fans though some are trying their best in changing that.

The face of Indian club football is changing for good and hopefully all the clubs in the I-League and below realise that and modernize or be left behind.