NEW DELHI: The Hero Indian Super League will introduce relegation and promotion from the 2024-25 season, and leading up to that, the Hero I-League winners will get “direct slots” in the ISL in 2022 and 2023.
This has been “agreed upon by all stakeholders”, All India Football Federation general secretary Kushal Das told PTI on Saturday.
With the process set in motion for the entry of East Bengal FC into the ISL, after months of uncertainty, the 2020-21 season of the India’s top tier league will have 11 teams, up from the current 10. Keeping in mind that a team will be added to the ISL in the 2021-22 and the 2022-23 seasons respectively, when relegation, promotion does kick in, the ISL will be a 13-team league.
“The road map is for the next two years… The winner of I-League will get a direct slot in ISL purely on sporting merit from 2022.
“Then, from 2024-25 there will be promotion, relegation where the bottom-placed team in ISL will be relegated to the second tier and the I-League winner will be promoted to ISL. This is the road map agreed by all stakeholders,” Das told PTI.
