On a humid april evening in kolkata, Mohun Bagan's first-rate massive clinched the 2024-25 indian Super League (ISL) trophy amid fireworks and a roaring home crowd.
It turned into the ideal narrative—India's oldest footballing institution now topped as current champions. but beyond the stadium lighting fixtures and polished digicam angles lies a deeper, messier truth about indian soccer: it is constructed not for player development, but for income.
A decade on account of its inception, the ISL has created a league with top-elegance production, glitzy signings, and solid franchises. However, at what price? The domestic game has emerged as a closed circuit—shiny on the outside, however hollow inside. The hassle, say stakeholders, isn't always a lack of cash. It's the absence of a roadmap.
No climb, no competition.
At the coronary heart of indian football's stagnation lies its franchise-based, totally version, a shape that correctly slams the door on promotion and relegation—the very lifeblood of aggressive soccer throughout the globe. In most international locations, overall performance dictates development. In india, it is the size of the check that matters.
clubs like Dempo FC, one of the most embellished soccer teams in indian history, or even the present-day I-League champions, Churchill Brothers, who as soon as they rose to the top via benefit, now find themselves locked out of the top tier, regardless of how properly they perform. The indian Wonderful League, now the top tier of football in the united states of America, offers no course upward for those outside its closed gates, only a pay-to-play alternative.
Ranjit Bajaj, whose Minerva Academy has long targeted grassroots and young people's improvement, articulates the disappointment shared by many: "You are telling me that I should spend Rs one hundred crore, or even if I win the whole thing, I nevertheless cannot visit the ISL? Why might I waste that money?" It is now not simply rhetorical—it's the truth faced by clubs running out of doors in the ISL bubble.
With the advertising and promotion machine long gone, how does a team play top-tier football (ISL) in India?
Simple—purchase your way into it.
The case of Mohammedan wearing membership illustrates this damaged version. After years of rebuilding and on-field fulfillment, the iconic kolkata club sooner or later entered the ISL within the 2024-25 season. However, they didn't earn their place—they offered to pay a franchise fee of Rs 12 crore. When you factor in the inflated player salaries, infrastructure investments, and personnel expenses, the financial burden will become daunting for clubs that are not company-owned. And still, there's no guarantee of sustainability or return.
In Europe, the story unfolds in a very different way. Leeds United, upon merchandising to the superior league, reportedly earned over Rs 1,000 crore in broadcast revenue by myself. Just qualifying for the UEFA Champions League guarantees clubs Rs 170 crore or greater. This isn't always just prize money—it's gasoline for reinvestment in skills, infrastructure, and long-term planning.
"In Europe, even the closing-placed most beneficial League crew earns over Rs 1,000 crore through broadcasts and bonuses. That's what offers golf equipment the incentive to invest in infrastructure, players, and long-term period plans." Pradhyum Reddy, CEO of Dempo SC
returned to india, that incentive is conspicuously absent. The ISL's sales model leans heavily on sponsorships, centralized media rights, and matchday income. But with no praise for performance and no risk of relegation, most golf equipment has little cause to assume lengthy time periods or make investments meaningfully in grassroots ecosystems.
Reddy is blunt about the results: "Merchandising and relegation are essential. Without them, there's no incentive to enhance."
This absence of benefit-based total mobility turns indian soccer into what Bajaj calls a gated network, in which getting entry is managed no longer by way of ambition or success, but rather via balance sheets. His complaint cuts deep: "If ISL golf equipment in reality has more money, better coaches, and infrastructure, why has it not produced even one first-rate participant in 15 years?" He sees a device extra inquisitive about keeping control than encouraging increase.
The end result is a pinnacle-tier league in which danger is minimal, reward is predetermined, and the competitive spirit is muted. In a recreation constructed on the joys of the climb, indian football gives no ladder, and without a ladder, there is no cause to upward thrust.
The Anwar ali instance
Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than the case of Anwar Ali, the 23-year-old center-back who signed a five-year, Rs 24 crore deal with east Bengal FC, making him the highest-paid indian footballer ever. It is Rs 4.8 crore a year—more than a few gamers earn at top-of-the-line League clubs.
Bajaj, who helped shape Anwar's early career, says the difficulty isn't the participant,r, but the distorted marketplace he represents. "It is primary demand and supply," he explains. "There are so few great indian gamers that clubs are compelled to pay exorbitantly. However, if the ISL golf equipment sincerely had higher academies, coaches, and assets, why haven't they produced a single pinnacle participant within the last 15 years?"
In place of growing 50 more Anwar Alis, the device has created an elite bubble, wherein a few gamers are overvalued and overprotected, while the pipeline from grassroots to pinnacle tier remains broken.
Why indian gamers don't pass abroad
Across Asia, pinnacle footballing countries like Japan, South Korea, and iran continuously send their pleasant players to Europe—even to 2nd and 0.33 divisions—for publicity and increase. That cultural shift hasn't occurred in India. And Bajaj says it's due to the fact players right here get paid too well to take that danger.
"India will qualify for the world cup only while at least ten indian gamers are gambling in Europe—Champions League, Europa League, or maybe the Conference League," he says. "However will they move abroad? No, because they're earning one hundred times extra right here. Why leave?"
The indian soccer crew has always lacked girth against big facets. (photo: X/Indian soccer team)
For many indian footballers—lots of whom come from modest backgrounds—a Rs four crore ISL contract is more than only a professional raise. It is a life-changing opportunity. In any such scenario, chasing the european dream will become unrealistic, even unfair.
"They may be no longer incorrect to live returned," Bajaj admits. "They may be supporting households. However, if it is the machine, it is incorrect. If there had been investment in kids and improvement, these gamers might have emerged prepared and ambitious to go overseas. It really is now not taking place."
Relying on a forty-12-month-old sunil Chhetri to solve India's striker woes highlights a deeper trouble—without investing in teens' development, the national group will stay caught, pressured to lean on aging stars in preference to nurturing new talent for the destiny.
Polish over cause
Watch any ISL in shape, and you may wonder what indian football gets right: beautiful production, digicam angles, lighting fixtures, and social media content. But then the game starts—and fact sets in.
"After I watch the ISL and then watch the Ideal League, the lights, stadiums, and overall revelry feel the same. However, the football? not even near," Bajaj remarks.
This, he believes, is because the ISL became never designed with football at its center. It changed into constructed for sponsorships, branding, and tv-where on-pitch excellence turned into simply another aspect.
"In case you're signing long-term period contracts and pumping in so much cash, why not now spend money on teenagers development too?" he asks. "In 15 years, it's your league, so one can benefit."
Instead, ISL clubs act extra like corporate entities, buying gamers from small academies instead of nurturing their personal growth.
"I'm the only one promoting gamers to them, and I should probably simply close up," Bajaj jokes. "But the fact is, I don't need to sell gamers to Mohun Bagan or east Bengal. I want to promote gamers to Barcelona."
manipulate, no longer growth
As long as promotion and relegation are absent, indian soccer will stay a gated club. The combat to introduce merit-based development has now entered the court docket, with the All india Football Federation (AIFF) and Football sports Development Limited (FSDL) pushing again.
"The humans walking FSDL are not footballers. They do not recognize the sport," Bajaj says. "And even now, they're in court looking to prevent promotion and relegation."
The reason, he believes, is straightforward: control.
"Clubs and directors are terrified of unpredictability. They need stability, no longer sporting chaos. However, without that chaos—without giving smaller clubs a ladder to climb—you can in no way create an actual soccer environment."
So what now?
There's no denying that the ISL has delivered visibility, structure, and investment into indian soccer. But its cutting-edge trajectory risks turning into a pitcher ceiling. Without genuine competition, export-oriented player increase, and grassroots improvement, india will keep spinning its wheels.
"There's so much cash being pumped in. But which is the imaginative and prescient"? Bajaj asks, almost rhetorically.
If the aim is to build a footballing kingdom, not only a football enterprise, then it's time to deliver merit again into the communication. For now, indian football may also look the element, but till we could move of its manipulative, first-mind-set, it will keep falling short of its genuine potential.ka
click and follow Indiaherald WhatsApp channel