The stakeholders of the Indian Super League were announced yesterday, bringing a sense of renewed optimism amongst the football fans in India. The tournament was postponed to September 2014 last year after “opposition from domestic clubs”. This had raised doubts amongst many fans on whether or not the event will be ever held or not.
But thankfully a good number of bidders were interested and a total of 8 teams were formed.
Retired cricket great Sachin Tendulkar won the bid for the Kochi franchise in association with PVP ventures, which also owns a team in the Indian Badminton League. Sourav Ganguly bagged the Kolkata team along with joint bidders, which includes current La Liga leaders Atletico Madrid.
The India film industry did not lag behind in showing its support either as Salman Khan (joint bidder for Pune), Ranbir Kapoor (Joint bidder for Mumbai) and John Abraham (joint bidder for Guwahati) pitched in to invest.
Speaking at the event, Tendulkar said, “I will always remain a sportsman at heart who is keen to positively impact the sporting fabric of the nation. The Indian Super League presents a great opportunity to develop a platform for the youngsters to learn and enhance their talent to develop into outstanding players.”
Tendulkar’s bid was a joint one with PVP Ventures Limited whose chairman and managing director Prasad Potluri said, “We look forward to developing the Kochi club in the Indian Super League and are proud to partner with one of India’s greatest sportsmen, Sachin Tendulkar, in our efforts.”
The base price of each team is said to be 12 Crores.
Kenny Dalglish is expected to coach one of the 8 teams.
The tourney will include former international stars Dwight Yorke, Thierry Henry, Hernan Crespo, Micheal Owen and Fredrik Ljungberg. The coaches too will be high profile ones. few of us might think that the players are retired, so whats the point? The thing is, with their experience, our youngsters will get to learn certain things that they never would have. The idea is to attract better players in the coming years, the exact same way IPL does. IPL started out as “a hub for former players” but now has become really competitive, the same should apply for ISL. So lets hope for the best!
Sporting Clube de Goa president Peter Vaz revealed that the tourney will be a step down as the retired players will not be worth it since they wont be match fit. He said, “How is this product any better? There will be (better) foreign players, right, but at least the foreign players that we have are match-fit. Those who will come here to play in the ISL will be retired. What will be their contract? Will any player worth his salt settle for playing for just two months?”
Churchill Brothers’ CEO, Valanka Alemao, too felt that the tourney is a waste of time, “Believe me, this is one of the most detrimental tournament India could ever have.
“Its going to kill a sleeping giant without allowing it a chance to wake up and get out of bed,” he added.
