NEW DELHI: India’s 2020-21 domestic football season, including the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) and the Hero I-league, will tentatively begin in November 2020, All India Football Federation (AIFF) general secretary Kushal Das said on Monday.
Both leagues will be held behind closed doors and all matches will take place at a single venue. The ISL is likely to be held in Goa, while the I-league will take place in Kolkata – as only a few venues offer multiple stadiums required to conduct the league, ESPN reports.
Official word is still awaited though.
“The first priority is completing the [I-league] second division. We should hold it by mid-September to give the side getting promoted enough time for transfers, etc.,” Das said during a webinar on Monday.
As earlier reported, the seventh edition of the ISL will in all likelihood be held in Goa, with Kerala, which was cited as the other possible contender as host state, dropping out of contention.
This was confirmed to SportzPower by an ISL team official Friday and corroborates comments made by Das to Sportstar. “Goa is definitely one of the States. Kerala cannot be an option because it does not have (enough) stadiums,” Das had said.
“Kochi has only one stadium and for Kozhikode you have to travel with the teams. For Thiruvananthapuram also, you have to travel. We are trying to avoid travel as much as possible but have not taken a final decision.”
As per the broad outlines of the plans that have been shared by Football Sports Development Ltd (FSDL), organiser of the ISL, with the franchises, the teams, their support staff as well as technical crew could well be operating in a “bubble environment” for the full duration of the league. Details of just how this will “translate on the ground” are still awaited though.
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