Premier League Soccer look to bring former stars to Bengal

An IPL-style football league is set to be launched in West Bengal under the name of Premier League Soccer by the local football body Indian Football Association (West Bengal) along with event organisers Celebrity Management Group. This was announced this afternoon at the Stadel in Kolkata at an official press conference attended by CMG's Bhaswar Goswami, Dharamdutt Pandey and IFA Honorary Secretary Utpal Ganguli.

The press conference was intended to name potential former stars who would come to the state to be part of the league as icon players to give the PLS the necessary profile to establish itself as a new competitive seven week league within Indian football. The league is set for a late-February launch.

Amongst those who have been confirmed are Robert Pires (France); Jay Jay Okocha (Nigeria) and Portuguese duo Maniche and Sérgio Conceição with former Argentina captain Juan Pablo Sorin also said to have confirmed his participation.

The six franchises are set to be coached by foreign coaches of repute in Englishmen Peter Reid, John Barnes and Tony Adams besides Samson Sia Sia (Nigeria), Marco Etcheverry (Bolivia) and Teitur Thodarson (Iceland).

The coaches will have between 25 to 30 players to chose from. There can be upto four foreigners, six Under-21 players, six catchment players and 10 to 14 Indian players.

"The tournament will give excellent opportunity to the youngsters to play with the big names in the six-eight weeks under highly experienced coaches," Indian Football Association (IFA) Secretary Utpal Ganguli said.

Asked about its limited presence in the six towns of Bengal, Ganguli said, "We are starting off with these six towns. But the aim is to have a pan-India presence. "There will be television telecast through which we will get a national presence. We are targeting at the youth segment who are hooked to the English Premier League," CMG's Bhaswar Goswami said.

The PLS' inaugural season would initially see six franchises in action, who would be based in Kolkata, Barasat, Howrah, Haldia, Durgapur and Siliguri. The six franchises will be chosen through competitive bidding with the base price set to be fixed at Rs 5 to 10 Million (50 lakh to 1 crore).

The organisers have understood that costs have to be kept under check. The franchises will be allowed to spend upto 2 Million USD per season, while the icon player can cost between 400,000 to 600,000 USD, the other foreigners upto 200,000 USD and the young foreigner upto 100,000 USD.

A lot still needs to be done and organised before the league can get into action in two months time with more information to be released by the organisers in the weeks to come.