Indian football stands at its most fragile moment since the formation of the Indian Super League (ISL) in 2014.
What was launched as a bold, reformative project to modernize Indian football has entered a dangerous period of uncertainty. At the heart of the crisis lies the impending expiry of the Master Rights Agreement (MRA) between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and Football Sports Development Ltd. (FSDL), scheduled for December 8, 2025. But beyond the legal impasse, a deeper, structural issue threatens the long-term survival of the league its financial model is fundamentally broken.
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The MRA, signed in 2010 for a 15-year term, granted FSDL the commercial rights to operate the league in return for an annual payment of ₹50 crore to the AIFF. With the agreement expiring and the Supreme Court preventing the AIFF from signing any new commercial contracts until a judgment on its constitutional validity, the ISL has effectively entered a governance vacuum.
FSDL has made clear it cannot commercially plan or secure sponsors for the 2025–26 season without clarity. Clubs, already struggling financially, have taken drastic steps some have paused operations, delayed player salaries, or halted contract renewals. For a league aspiring to drive India’s footballing future, this operational standstill is nothing short of an existential warning.
The AIFF attempted to resolve the situation with a Request for Proposal (RFP) to find a new commercial partner. It failed spectacularly not a single bid was received, even after an extension. The minimum guaranteed fee of ₹37.5 crore demanded by AIFF was viewed by the market as commercially unviable, particularly for a product that has been losing money for a decade.
The Bigger Problem: ISL Clubs Are Bleeding Money
While the MRA crisis triggered the immediate chaos, the league’s underlying issues run far deeper. Most ISL clubs lose money every season a structural failure that has persisted since the league’s inception. Initial reports indicated annual losses of around ₹30 crore per club. Even today, a mid-table team spends roughly ₹60 crore per season and still loses half of it.
The reasons are clear:
- Central revenue distribution is too small: ISL clubs receive just ₹13–16 crore from central broadcasting revenues.
- Operating costs are extremely high: Salaries, infrastructure, travel, and support staff drive costs up to ₹60 crore annually.
- Local revenues remain weak: Attendances have dropped from over 25,000 per match in 2014 to just 11,084 last season. Media viewership has fallen from 429 million to around 130 million.
This trend directly impacts the league’s commercial viability. Unlike cricket, where the IPL generates enormous broadcasting revenue (over ₹48,000 crore for the 2023–27 cycle), football does not command the same media value. With low central revenue and high costs, clubs depend heavily on owner funding a model that cannot sustain itself indefinitely.
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Recognizing the crisis, FSDL has proposed a structural overhaul: a new holding company with clubs owning 60%, FSDL 26%, and AIFF 14%. This approach shifts ISL towards a club-majority model similar to global football leagues while reducing AIFF’s reliance on guaranteed annual payments.
However, this proposal brings its own challenges. AIFF fears losing its financial safety net and regulatory influence. Without a guaranteed ₹50 crore each year, its financial planning becomes uncertain. Yet, this fear overlooks a crucial reality the fixed-fee model itself is unsustainable. No commercial entity will pay such high fees for a loss-making property.
Can the ISL Learn from Major League Soccer?
Experts believe that the ISL’s survival requires adopting elements of the MLS single-entity structure. MLS, established in 1996 after earlier U.S. soccer leagues collapsed financially, centralized all team and player contracts under a single league entity. Instead of independent clubs competing against each other financially, MLS introduced:
- Central control of player contracts
- Strict salary caps
- Shared risk across investors
- Guaranteed competitive balance
This allowed MLS to control wage inflation, avoid financial collapses, and transition from a failing enterprise to a billion-dollar league with stable investors and growing audiences.
The ISL’s situation mirrors MLS in the 1990s a football product with potential but crippled by uncontrolled spending, weak revenues, and systemic financial losses. Adopting a pure MLS-style model is legally complex in India due to competition law and the AIFF’s regulatory role. But the ISL can adopt a hybrid model:
- Clubs operate teams but accept centralised cost controls
- A hard salary cap becomes mandatory
- FSDL and clubs share commercial rights
- AIFF retains veto power over sporting integrity matters
This approach balances financial discipline with regulatory compliance while protecting player pathways and developmental structures.
The Road Ahead: Survival Requires Unity
The ISL is facing the biggest risk to its existence since its launch. Years of investment over ₹5,000 crore by FSDL and crores more by club owners are now at stake. More importantly, the ecosystem built around the league youth academies, training facilities, coaching programmes, and fan cultures could collapse without urgent structural reform.
For Indian football to move forward, the three stakeholders AIFF, FSDL, and the clubs must align under a shared vision. The days of a fragmented structure and high-risk commercial expectations are over. A sustainable future demands governance stability, centralized financial discipline, and long-term trust between all parties.
The ISL was created to transform Indian football.
To fulfil that promise, it must now reinvent itself.
