Hyderabad all set to have a team in ISL

Mumbai & Pune likely to get merged from forthcoming season

ISL-Logo-2015
A number of 10 teams might participate fro ISL season 4. File Pic

Internet Desk: The city of Hyderabad is all set to get a team in the Indian Super League (ISL) from next season. Fateh Hyderabad AFC is likely to represent the city of Nizam in the ISL. The club was founded in 2015 and is owned by city based businessmen Yogesh Mourya and Aditya Narayanan.

Apart from Fateh Hyderabad there will be a team from Ranchi as well which will be owned by the Tata group. In another development, Mumbai and Pune will jointly have a team from the forthcoming season which means there will be no separate teams from Mumbai and Pune. Mumbai City FC and FC Pune City have been taking part in the ISL for the last three seasons. I League club Bengaluru FC will be the tenth team in the league.

Football Sports Development Limited, the ISL organizers had already floated the tender through ‘Invitation to Bid’ on May 12. The last day for submission of bids from prospective team owners in 10 cities — Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Cuttack, Durgapur, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Ranchi, Siliguri and Thiruvananthapuram – is May 24.

Kolkata giants East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are yet to decide on their participation in the ISL. Although East Bengal has picked the bid documents, Mohun Bagan is yet to decide on their next course of action. A lot will depend on the meeting between the representatives of the two clubs’ with AIFF secretary Kushal Das in Delhi tomorrow.

If the Kolkata giants mutually give their consent to participate in the ISL, then chances are likely to have a 12 team affair with both East Bengal and Mohun Bagan joining Bengaluru FC.

Interestingly, there will not be any additional franchise from the northeast, killing whatever faint hopes I-League’s fairytale champions Aizawl FC may have nursed.

Aizawl, however, will continue participating in the I-League, a competition that the AIFF has continued to maintain enjoys the highest status in Indian football.