BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Football Association (KSFA) is planning to organize the first ever state-level franchise-based football competition during May-June 2019, when the Indian Super League (ISL) will have its off season, Times of India reports.
The competition, which is expected to be called the Karnataka Football League (KFL), is proposed to have eight teams participating from across the state with all games to be played at the Bangalore Football Stadium.
Should the football league take off in the southern state, it will become the richest state-level tournament for the sport in India as prize money of Rs 10 million has been reportedly declared. The winning team will take home Rs 5-6 million.
“The tournament will be called Karnataka Football League and and the plan is to conduct the tournament in May or June. We are in talks with the stakeholders and the All India Football Federation to finalize the details of the tournament in the coming days.” KSFA sources told TOI.
“The plan is to have a tournament with eight franchises. Each team can be bought at a base price of Rs 5 million for a period of three years. At the moment we are looking at eight owners who can buy the franchises. The list of people who have expressed interest in buying the teams include owners of some of the top teams in the Super Division League. We are expecting to get expressions of interest from leading business houses and film stars as well.
“The winners should get about Rs 5-6 million, making it the richest in the country. There will be eight franchises out of which two will be from Bengaluru. There will be one each from Mysuru, Mangaluru, Belagavi, Hubballi and Ballari and one team from among Tumakuru, Kalaburagi and Mandya.
“There will be a pool of players which will have top footballers from Karnataka, Kerala and Goa.
“The tournament will be held during the ISL off-season and that will help fringe players from ISL to feature in KFL,” the sources told the daily.
The daily further reported that each team will likely be given a purse of Rs 3 million to buy players from the central player draft.
