IPFCA mulling its own tournament

June 05, 2013 05:03 pm | Updated 05:03 pm IST - MUMBAI:

The Indian Professional Football Clubs Association (IPFCA), formed in 2012 to safeguard the interest of member clubs, is moving towards organising its own tournament early next year. The intention is to keep contracted players in shape with competitive action when there is no I-League during the period, and also generate revenue.

The problem is that the All India Football Federation and commercial partner, the International Management Group-Reliance (IMG-R), is in the process of launching its own tournament involving franchise-supported teams on the lines of the IPL around the same time — January-February 2014.

The nation’s top football professionals attached to different I-League clubs have been approached to sign up for the new venture. It is learnt that the IPFCA have arrived at a consensus that clubs competing in the I-League will not release any contracted player for the new event by IMG-R, nor will any player whose contract has a release clause pertaining to the IPL-style event be signed up.

The players are caught in a bind since the I-League has its own place in Indian football, and the new tournament is organised by AIFF’s commercial partner.

The 12 I-League clubs from across India came together last year at Vasco to launch the IPFCA, headed by Salgaocar SC representative, Raj Gomes, as president, and Pune FC Operations Head, Chirag Tanna, as general secretary.

The objectives were to safeguard interest of member clubs and popularise the game. The professional clubs body will be meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday to decide on further course of action, after taking views from member clubs.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.