A ray of hope, Supreme Court hearing on the deadlock in Indian football on Friday
Sanchita Chatterjee BS News Agency: Finally, a hint of breaking the deadlock in Indian football has been found in the Supreme Court's decision. The ISL has been suspended indefinitely due to complications arising from the Master Rights Agreement between the Football Federation of India and FSDL. This has caused problems for the clubs participating in the ISL. Especially, excluding Mohun Bagan Supergiant and East Bengal, representatives of 11 clubs have expressed their problems in various ways, even in a meeting with the newly elected federation president Kalyan Chaubey. When the matter was brought to the attention of the Supreme Court on Monday, the country's top court promised to hear the entire matter on Friday, August 22.
The country's 11 ISL playing clubs had given an ultimatum to the AIFF, telling it that if the ISL could not be started without resolving the problems quickly, they would stop operating the clubs. 3 clubs have already taken that path. In the meeting on August 11, Federation President Kalyan Choubey assured the club representatives that since FSDL did not want to renew the contract until the final verdict on the federation's amended constitution and election rules given by the Supreme Court was received, the ISL was at a standstill. However, he will take steps to resolve this impasse quickly. He also proposed organizing the Super Cup until the ISL is formed.
This seemed like empty talk to the 11 ISL club representatives. They wrote a letter to the Federation President the next day, saying that if the Federation did not bring the matter to the attention of the Supreme Court quickly, then they would approach the country's top court together. After receiving this letter, Federation President Kalyan Choubey, after discussing with the legal cell of the organization and the lawyers of the club representatives, said that they would approach the Supreme Court quickly to resolve the problem. But then suddenly, a new twist came in the matter as the Federation backed down from this decision.
Not giving up on this U-turn of the federation, on Monday, amicus curiae, i.e., impartial counsel to the court, lawyers Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Samar Bansal, filed a petition before the bench of Justices P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar of the Supreme Court, stating that the term of the agreement with FSDL has not yet expired. Therefore, the ISL should have been started by now by honoring that agreement and walking on the path of cooperation with the federation. And if that was not done, then the AIFF should have been given the right to call tenders for a new agreement. With the situation gradually turning around, if the club is closed, if the footballers and employees associated with the club do not get their salaries and go to FIFA, India will face exile again. What happened once before was for a different reason.