PSU sides out of I-League?

The meeting was held yesterday and it was clear from the onset that when the Asian Football Confederation constituted Indian Professional Football Ad-hoc committee would meet again in New Delhi the key issue regarding the I-League would be the future of the three 'Public Sector Undertaking' clubs - Air India, ONGC and HAL. With the clubs in their current status the I-League cannot be termed a professional league.

All the participating clubs in the 2010/11 season of the I-League excluding the Indian Arrows (India Under-20 national team) had been given the deadline of December 31, 2010 to fulfil the AFC Club Licensing criteria or face the consequences. 10 of the clubs had fulfilled the criteria, while the three PSU sides continued to be unable to turn their football teams into commercial entities.

And that being a pre-requisite for any club to participate at the professional national level in Indian football, meaning the three sides would not be even allowed to participate in next years 2nd Division I-League or fulfil the criteria and then participate in the 2nd Division.

While the officials of the three clubs continue to speak about the contribution of PSU's to Indian football and their problems to turn their football teams into commercial entities, another PSU side in BEML (EM) from Bangalore has been able to transform their football team into a commercial entity and was a late entry into the 2nd Division this season.

Professionalism has to come into Indian club football and the old habit of asking for more time to get things done again and again cannot continue for ages. Then the vicious cycle would continue and the league would remain what it said has now been for 15 years, a league which at times is rather amateur and else semi-professional.

Still a final decision has not been formally taken with some AIFF officials asking their AFC counterparts to be lenient and give a little more time to the PSU's to try and set their house in order. If the AFC will agree and if the three clubs will utilise the time to finally become commercial entities will have to be seen.

One thing is clear, the 2011/12 I-League will be a 14 team affair and both the AFC and AIFF want to ensure it is finally a fully professional league.