Licensing test failure highlights the clubs’ shortcomings to protect the I-League brand

When the AIFF started the National Football League (NFL) in 1996, there was optimism in the Indian football fraternity that the newly-launched tournament will take the beautiful game in the country to a new level.

But after one season, the interest started to die out and even a new television deal with Zee didn’t help matters. After 11 seasons, NFL was rebranded into the I-League with the aim of having a successful professional domestic league following the guidelines of the AFC.

However six years on, just like the NFL, the I-League too has become a fading brand and all the talk in Indian football now is about the IPL-style tournament that AIFF’s commercial and marketing partners IMG-Reliance have proposed.

Besides opposing the new tournament jointly under the banner of IPFCA (The Indian Professional Football Clubs Association), several club owners have hit out against the AIFF and their partners for degrading the I-League. The clubs want new changes to be made within the I-League and don’t want their importance to be undermined by a new tournament.

The clubs are even willing to run the I-League themselves if it’s made a separate legal entity. They have been fighting to get the I-League to become a separate legal entity for a long time now but the news that 13 of the 15 participating clubs for the 2013-14 I-League have failed the licensing test will be a deafening setback for the Indian clubs.

The two exceptions are the two new entries into the I-League – Bengaluru FC and Mumbai Tigers who were of course not part of the inspection that was carried out by the AIFF following the AFC guidelines.

All 14 clubs who applied for this test earlier this year, including United Sikkim, who were relegated from the I-League last season, failed to get the license that is necessary to play in the I-League and has to be renewed every year.

The clubs now have a deadline until August 14 to either appeal or request an exemption for the National License to participate in the I-League and Federation Cup this season. That exemption will only be granted for one more year only after which, as per rules, any failed club would be debarred from the I-League.

The failure highlights the shortcomings of the clubs to protect the I-League brand. Of course the blame game can go on between AIFF and clubs as to who is more responsible for the degradation of the country’s top most domestic competition but the fact is that the clubs haven’t kept their house in order.

The licensing test is based on five broad aspects – sporting, infrastructure, personnel & administration, finance and legal. There are around 41 mandatory requirements and failure in any one would result in teams not getting the license.