The AIFF presented a long-term plan to stage the ISL in a meeting with all the clubs on Friday. According to the new plan, the league will be ‘owned and operated’ by the Federation for the next 20 seasons.
Guiding principles
“The AIFF has put this proposal to the ISL clubs, and the two guiding principles have been to ensure the league starts as soon as possible and to ensure that we are in line with the recently adopted Constitution as directed by the Supreme Court,” M. Satyanarayan, AIFF’s Deputy Secretary General, told The Hindu.
The new league cycle will run from June 1 to May 31 every year and will have promotion and relegation. The first season of ISL, under the new plan, will run with a ‘Central Operational Budget’ of ₹70 Cr., and each club will have to pay AIFF a ‘standard participation fee’ of ₹1 Cr. annually.
The commercial partner will have to pay ₹12 Cr. to acquire four % of the stake in the revenue pool, in addition to its allotted 26%, as League Membership Contribution.
Once the league breaks even, following a total revenue of ₹96 Cr., 60% of the revenue has been reserved for clubs — 50% of it will be equally distributed to all clubs, and the remaining 10% will be allocated to clubs that invest in an additional ‘revenue share’ of the central revenue pool and protect a portion of its investment even after its relegation.
The Federation will keep 10% of the revenue share, while 30% will be reserved for a potential commercial partner.
Clubs which have been in the League for more than eight years will get up to one % of fixed revenue share, those that have been in ISL for three to eight years will get 0.5%, while newer clubs will get up to 0.25% share.
“Two more meetings have been scheduled on December 28 and December 29.
“The latter is a physical one, and hopefully, together with the stakeholders, we will have more clarity that helps to now shift the action to the football pitch as soon as possible,” Satyanarayan added.
Published – December 26, 2025 10:58 pm IST
