Some of the most famous names in football such as Thierry Henry, Dwight Yorke, Fredrik Ljunberg, Robert Pires, Louis Saha and Hernan Crespomay soon grace Indian shores with the inaugural Indian Football League. Stalwarts like Peter Schmeichel and Marcel Desailly have also been roped in to manage the teams in this exciting new league. While Thierry Henry’s involvement is not confirmed as of now, other stars such as Michael Owen are also in talks to play in the league.
IMG and Reliance have floated a joint venture to kick off a multi-million dollar franchise-based football league starting January 2014. IMG and Reliance are also commercial partners of the AIFF (All India Football Federation). The franchise based football tournament will feature marquee players, like the ones mentioned above along with local talent and some of India’s national team players. The new tournament is likely to be christened the Indian Super League and is expected to last for around three months from January to March. An auction is expected in the first week of December to determine the franchises-to be.The invitation to tender document has already been floated by IMG-Reliance and the base price to buy a franchise is learned to be around Rs 25 crore. Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Bangalore, Kochi, Goa and Pune have been identified as the nine venues that will be up for sale in the auction.
A huge part in this new league being a successful one will be played by the live coverage of the matches. As a result, IMG-Reliance has entered into a 10 year joint venture with Rupert Murdoch owned Star India granting the sports broadcasting giant exclusive broadcasting rights for the tournament. Sources also confirmed that Murdoch owned Star India has pickup up a one-third stake in the IMG-Reliance joint venture that’s looking to launch an IPL style football tournament early next year.
IMG-Reliance chairperson Nita Ambani confirmed the development and told media persons, “Having Star on board as a partner strengthens our efforts and commitment to propel Indian football to its rightful place. We see the launch of the football league as the realization of a dream of a billion-plus Indians to experience the most cherished game globally in new ways.” Uday Shankar, CEO Star India, said, “India is hungry for its second sport. For far too long, the Indian sports fan has waited for this revolution. Our objective is nothing short of creating a movement around football in India. We want to put India on the global map.”
The interest shown so far has been tremendous and a plethora of businessmen, Bollywood superstars, corporates and existing owners of IPL teams are looking to bid in the franchisee auction.