Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore confirms merger of leagues

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New Delhi, Dec 27: There has been a long stand debate ongoing since the last couple of seasons whether there should be only one national league in our country or any of the two leagues, ISL or I League should be scrapped completely to accommodate one.

AFC from this season has given license to cash-rich ISL tournament as an official league status of India along with I League however managing two leagues simultaneously has seen some of the top players opting to play for ISL sides who are more concentrated with money rather than I League.

Even top I League clubs like Bengaluru Fc also jumped the ship from I League to ISL this season for better status.

AIFF earlier had indicated that to solve such crisis they were considering a merger between India's two premier club competitions, the Indian Super League and I-League in the near future but could not provide any concrete future map.

Kolkata giants like East Bengal and Mohun Bagan also earlier expressed their interest to join the newly formed League, however, later went against the move after they were told they have to a pay a large sum money which they could not agree to.

The whole Indian football fraternity now has been divided among two large sections, one who are backing the ISL and others who are rooting for the age-old competition like I League.

The same questions were recently raised in the Upper House of the Parliament by an MP based in Bengal and to this enquiry Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the sports minister has again assured that the merger will sure happen in near future but there will be two lower division leagues of League 1 and League 2, which means the I-League, could effectively be reduced to second division.

"AIFF along with all its stakeholders has planned to restructure the club football model in India wherein there would be one unified league at the top followed by lower division leagues namely, League 1 and League 2 in line with global best practices," Rathore informed.

He moreover continued that AIFF is seeking help from FIFA and AFC in order to implement the plan soon.

"AIFF has taken the help of FIFA and AFC for smooth implementation of the aforesaid plan," Rathore added.

It will be fascinating to see if literally, the statements pan out in near future however till now all these talks are only flying in the air as-as of now no complete roadmap of the merger has been established.