Former champions Gokulam Kerala FC put it across Sreenidi Deccan 3-2 in Hyderabad in the opening match on Friday
Panaji: Agitating clubs called off their protest and ensured that the
I-League
kicked off as scheduled on Friday, after being assured by the commercial rights holder that the matches would be broadcast on Sony.
A day before the scheduled start, I-League clubs had told the All India Football Federation (
AIFF
) in an email that it is “no longer financially viable to play the league” as they were being asked to pay for broadcast, cope fines ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 24 lakh for failure to meet the stringent club licensing criteria, and, despite assurances, the broadcaster was finalised.
“I-league clubs request you to send us confirmation of
Sony Network
as the official broadcaster of the I-League by 8pm tonight, failing which I-League clubs will not commence the league as scheduled to commence tomorrow (Friday),” the club said in the letter late on Thursday.
The federation did not respond before the 8pm deadline. Instead, the next morning, AIFF convened a meeting of all clubs and the commercial rights holders for the league, Shrachi Sports, where a breakthrough was achieved, four hours before kick off.
“Each of the clubs agreed to pay Rs 12.5 lakh to cover part of the broadcast cost,” a club official told TOI after the meeting. “We told them that we need an email from Shrachi to Sony about the broadcast, before the opening match. Since Sony had already confirmed to us about their interest, we only needed the rights holders to agree. The email has been sent, legal papers have also been exchanged. Once the agreement is signed next week, we can expect most of the matches to be broadcast live. This is what the clubs wanted, so we are happy that a solution is now in place.”
The meeting was attended by all the bigwigs of AIFF, including president Kalyan Chaubey, vice president NA Harris, secretary general Anilkumar Prabhakaran and deputy secretary general M Satyanarayan. Shrachi Sports was represented by managing director Rahul Todi.
With Sony expected to be on board only next week, the initial matches will not be broadcast on television, and will only be streamed on SSEN, the newly-launched OTT platform of Shrachi Sports, the lone bidders for marketing rights of I-League, I-League 2, Indian Women’s League (IWL) and the National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy.
The I-League is
Indian football
’s second-tier club competition, behind the Indian Super League (ISL). I-League winners are promoted to the top tier on sporting merit.
Last week, I-League clubs joined hands and addressed an unprecedented press conference, accusing the AIFF of trying to kill them.
Former champions
Gokulam Kerala FC
put it across Sreenidi Deccan 3-2 in Hyderabad in the opening match on Friday. ISL-winning coach Antonio Habas’
Inter Kashi
are scheduled to take on debutants
Sporting Club Bengaluru
in the second match of the opening day.
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