The ISL restarts on 4 September with 13 clubs, and the clubs now hold the commercial rights

Indian football spent most of this year arguing about who should own the Indian Super League. The answer, signed in July and now being paid for in instalments, is the clubs themselves. The 2026-27 season starts on 4 September with 13 teams and a commercial structure that did not exist twelve months ago.

The second instalment of the participation fee each club owes the All India Football Federation was due before 14 August, which puts the last administrative deadline of this saga in the same week as pre-season. It has been that kind of summer.

What the club-led model actually changes

The AIFF and the ISL Managing Committee signed a four-year agreement on 8 July. Under it, the clubs hold the league’s commercial rights through a special purpose vehicle they control, while the federation keeps the regulatory and administrative side. Media, sponsorship and data revenue now sit with the people who employ the players, which is the opposite of how the ISL has been run since 2014.

The clubs pay for that. Participation fees are fixed at Rs 1.1 crore for this season, then Rs 1.15 crore, Rs 1.2 crore and Rs 1.25 crore across the four years of the deal. The AIFF sought and got audit rights over the special purpose vehicle and a 10 per cent share of its net profits before it signed. The clubs wanted the right to walk away after two seasons, and that is what they got: a unilateral exit option after two years, with notice long enough for the federation to arrange something else if the model collapses.

Promotion and relegation survive, which matters more than it sounds. So does the return to a proper double round-robin, 24 matches per club rather than the shortened format that got the last season finished.

How Indian football got here

In March the AIFF put the commercial rights to its club competitions out to tender on a 15-year term with a five-year option. Genius Sports bid highest for the men’s package at about Rs 2,129 crore across 20 years. FanCode bid roughly Rs 1,190 crore over the same period. The federation preferred the bigger guarantee; the clubs preferred the smaller one, on the argument that a lower upfront commitment left more central revenue to reach them. Neither side moved, and a Special General Meeting in Kolkata on 23 May could not approve the Genius Sports bid.

By early June the cost of the deadlock was visible on team sheets rather than balance sheets. More than 150 ISL players were out of contract, several of them internationals, and most clubs had not opened renewal talks. Oscar Bruzon left East Bengal weeks after guiding them to their first national league title in 22 years. Goa and East Bengal, both due in AFC competitions, could not plan a pre-season.

Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya met the AIFF, the clubs and former federation president Praful Patel in New Delhi on 8 June and told both sides to build a roadmap. The 4 September start date and the club-led framework came out of that meeting. The agreement itself took another month.

Jamshedpur’s exit, and why 13 is not 14

The plan was for 14 clubs. On 31 July, Jamshedpur FC announced they would not take part, ending a nine-season run that began in 2017-18. They had missed an extended deadline to pay the first Rs 55 lakh instalment while their owners worked through internal shareholder approvals. Inter Kashi, the other club yet to pay at the 20 July cut-off, settled on the same day Jamshedpur pulled out.

Jamshedpur are not a small loss. They won the League Shield in 2021-22 under Owen Coyle, and in 2024-25 Khalid Jamil took them to the semi-finals as the first Indian head coach to get a side that far in the ISL. Their withdrawal leaves 13 teams from 12 cities, and leaves a squad of players looking for work in the middle of August.

Diamond Harbour arrive, Mohammedan drop

The one addition is Diamond Harbour FC, who won the Indian Football League in their first season in it. That is their third promotion in three years, after the I-League 3 and I-League 2 titles, and it makes them the third West Bengal club in the top division alongside Mohun Bagan Super Giant and East Bengal.

Going the other way are Mohammedan SC, the first club ever relegated from the ISL. For a league that spent a decade as a closed franchise competition, having a team come up on merit and another go down on results in the same summer is a bigger structural change than most of what was signed in July.

What is still unsettled

A Special General Meeting on 20 June approved a rule allowing three foreign players plus one holding Overseas Citizenship of India in a starting eleven. At least 12 of the 14 clubs then in the league opposed it. Mohun Bagan submitted their own recommendations, including making OCI selection optional and capping registrations. The rule stands, the objections have not gone away, and squad-building for September is happening around it.

There is less to play for in Asia, too. India’s slide to 15th in the AFC’s West Zone club rankings, below Hong Kong and Tajikistan, cost the country its direct place in AFC Champions League Two. For 2027-28 India has one play-off slot in the AFC Challenge League, the third tier of Asian club football, and this season’s champions or best eligible club will be the ones to take it.

Three months ago there was a real chance the ISL would not be played at all this season. It kicks off in three weeks, run by the people who own the teams, with the fixture list still to come and a lot of squads to finish building.

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