THE ALL INDIA FOOTBALL Federation has invited bids from consulting firms to manage and award the rights to monetise AIFF’s commercial properties for a “limited term”.
Among the AIFF’s major requirements in its Request for Quotation (RFQ) are a minimum annual turnover of Rs 100 crore in the last five years and prior experience of executing at least five such deals.
The last date of submission of bids is September 14, PTI reports.
The federation said the purpose of this RFQ is “to provide the bidder(s) with information that may assist them in the formulation of their proposals”.
The bidder must “be in existence and being in operation for at least five years and having prior experience of managing processes” for the award of commercial rights, the AIFF states in the RFQ.
Overseeing the selection process is a three-member bid evaluation committee (BEC), chaired by former Supreme Court Judge L Nageswara Rao, and including Kesavaran Murugasu, member, Audit & Compliance Committee, Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey.
Additionally, the AIFF’s Master Rights Agreement Task Force Committee, constituted on April 7 to negotiate the MRA with Football Sports Development Ltd, the federation’s incumbent commercial rights holder, will continue as the Tender Committee to evaluate the recommendations of the professional services firm.
It is necessary here to underline the point that the current crisis in Indian professional football surfaced after FSDL, on July 11, put the 2025-26 Indian Super League season “on hold”. The reasons that FSDL (read Reliance as it is the controlling entity), which runs the ISL, laid out for its decision was over the uncertainty surrounding the MRA with the federation, which was due to expire on December 08, and over which negotiations with said task force committee, were going nowhere.
Therefore it is more than ironic that what we have here is that the same committee that made a mess of the negotiations with FSDL for a new MRA, and which has left Indian professional football staring at an uncertain future, will be the very body that evaluates the credentials of the agency that will potentially determine the way forward for the ISL.
Now coming back to the RFQ, the bid document further reads: “The selected bidder shall study the best practices of awarding rights like the commercial rights in football across the world and in consultation with AIFF, determine the optimal basket of rights that will constitute the commercial rights, and the strategy to award such rights to third parties, in a manner most beneficial to AIFF, from an operational and financial perspective.”
Among other things, the work of the consulting firms will entail undertaking tasks such as “identifying and engaging with key stakeholders, preparing requisite documentation with detailed terms and conditions, and conducting background research and analysis for the preparation of the relevant documents, as and when required”, PTI quotes the RFQ as further stating.
During a hearing before the Supreme Court last month, the AIFF and FSDL submitted a consensual resolution to conduct an open, competitive and transparent tender (or equivalent process) for the selection of a commercial partner to conduct the ISL in line with global best practices.
The AIFF and the FSDL agreed that the process will be concluded by October 15, thereby providing certainty to clubs, broadcasters, sponsors and other stakeholders.
Subject to the consent of the AFC, the ISL season can thereafter commence in December, they had told the court.
