The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has planned to continue with their policy of adding corporate sides into the I-League through a bidding process. The year 2013 saw the advent of Jindal Steel Works (JSW) owned first franchise side Bengaluru FC in the I-League. It has been a fairytale journey for the garden City side so far in Indian football. They won the I-League in their debut season and won the Federation Cup in the succeeding season. They also finished runner-up in the recently concluded I-League season. Bengaluru FC had also managed to reach the knock-out stages of the AFC Cup in the maiden season, which in itself is a record.
Following the footsteps of Bengaluru FC a second franchise side was introduced by AIFF last season which is based out of Pune. The Kalyani Group owned Bharat FC have named themselves Bharat FC. The new side though failed to replicate what Bengaluru FC did in their debut season, they successfully stirred up the Indian football scenario with attractive branding of the team and thereby winning quite a few fans.
These two success stories have inspired the governing body to invite fresh bids again this season to create yet another franchise corporate side.
Regarding the news I-League CEO Sunando Dhar told TOI: “We will invite bids for new teams in the I-League soon. If we get one or two teams who fulfill the criteria, we will accommodate them. But past experiences suggest it’s not easy to make the cut. Ideally, we will want the bids to come from centres which do not have a team in the I-League. Centres like Chennai, Hyderabad should be interesting, but if there is a good bid from Goa or Kolkata, traditional football centres who are now left with just two teams each, we will consider,” said the I-League CEO.
The induction of the corporate sides have so far proved to be a wise idea. AIFF hopes the introduction of more such teams would refuel the interest among fans in Indian football and money will be injected.