I-League 2021-22 Fixtures: Full Schedule, Venues, Dates and Kick Off Timings

Bengaluru, December 8: India's first ever professional football league, the I-League kicked off the 2021-22 season on December 26 with all the matches scheduled to be played across three venues in West Bengal sans crowds.

The league started with the current title-holders Gokulam Kerala in action on the opening day. And this season the league will see three more teams join the 10 from the previous season.

Rajasthan United FC from Rajasthan and Mumbai-based Kenkre FC are promoted to the league after making their way through the qualifiers, while Sreenidi Deccan FC from Andhra Pradesh joins the league after they won a bid to field a team through a franchise entry.

This season, the matches will be played at three venues - Mohun Bagan Ground in Kolkata, Kalyani Stadium in Kalyani and Naihati Stadium in Naihati. All the teams, along with the officials and support staff will be placed in the bio-secure bubble for the entire season.

A total of 114 games will be played this season and matches will kick off at 2 PM, 4:30 PM and 7:30 PM. The 13 teams will first play against each other once in the round-robin format and then the teams will be split into two groups, as per their standings in Phase 1, which was supposed to end on February 24, 2022.

But COVID-19 forced the postponment of matches from Matchday 2 with the organizers rescheduling matches from March 3, meaning Phase 1 will now end on April 19, 2022.

Based on the standings at the end of Phase 1, the top seven teams will play for the title and AFC Cup qualification in a separate single-legged league format, while the bottom six will play to avoid relegation.

The bottom placed team in the relegation round will drop down to the I-League 2nd Division or the I-League qualifiers in the 2022-23 season. Now, let's take a look at the fixtures of Phase 1 of the leage.

I-League 2021-22 Phase 1 Fixtures with Venues and Timings in IST