AIFF’s new roadmap for Indian football: One league and one knockout cup by 2024-’25 season

The All India Football Federation had invited the clubs of the country’s two domestic leagues to a meeting at AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

The winner of I-League in 2022-’23 and 2023-’24 will be promoted to the Indian Super League as a roadmap of India’s domestic football structure was discussed in a meeting of stakeholders with the officials of the AIFF and the Asian Football Confederation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Monday.

The proposed timeline till 2024/25 has been agreed upon by the AFC.

The All India Football Federation had invited the clubs of the country’s two domestic leagues to a meeting at AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the future of the game in the country. The officials of Football Sports Development Limited, the organisers of the ISL, were also present in the meeting.

The national federation, in consultation with the AFC, presented a “roadmap” for the future of Indian club football and among the major points of the agreement is that by the 2022-’23 season there will be no entry fee for I-League clubs that are promoted to the Indian Super League.

But for the first three years (2019-’20, 2020-’21 and 2021-’22), there will continue to be no promotion and relegation in the ISL.

According to the agreement, two I-League clubs will be offered entry into the ISL by the end of the 2020-’21 season. 

In a presentation made by the federation it was also confirmed that the agreement between AFC and AIFF, the continental body agreed for the winner for ISL to represent India in the AFC Champions League while the I-League champions will get the AFC Cup slot.

It is learnt by Scroll.in that the AIFF had requested for direct group stage entry for AFC Champions League. But that has been put on hold since the structure of that league may also change as the commercial partners would be different from next year and the AFC slots will be allotted to ISL from next year only.

Here’s the agreement that the AFC and the AIFF have arrived at:

AIFF's roadmap for club football in India

Roadmap	Promotion / relegation details	Remarks
Year 1 (2019-'20)	No promotion & relegation in ISL
Year 2 (2020-'21)	No promotion & relegation in ISL	Two clubs from I-League to be offered entry into ISL by end of season
Year 3 (2021-'22)	No promotion & relegation in ISL	League format (name of league, number of teams etc) to be decided by AIFF for implementation
Year 4 (2022-'23)	Winner of I-League to be promoted to ISL, no relegation	No entry fee; no distribution of central revenue for the promoted club; only by sporting merit facilities, & national club licensing criteria
Year 5 (2023-'24)	Winner of I-League to be promoted to ISL, no relegation	No entry fee; no distribution of central revenue for the promoted club; only by sporting merit facilities, & national club licensing criteria
Year 6 (2024-'25)	One main league & one knock-out cup tournament, promotion & relegation to be implemented