Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 14 (IANS) The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Thursday yet again deferred its ultimatum to Indian clubs on the licensing criteria to be eligible to play in the revamped professional I-League in the 2011-12 season and gave them one more year to fall in line.

All the 14 clubs taking part in the I-League have to be registered as professional clubs to qualify to play in the fully pro I-League. But, the public sector undertakings (PSU) Air India, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) are caught in a cleft stick as they cannot convert themselves into private sector commercial entities to play as professionals and if they do not then they will have to wind up their clubs.

Then, there is the case of Indian Arrows, a motley group of under-21 footballers the All India Football Federation (AIFF) cobbled up to play in the league. The federation may not be keen on getting saddled with a club of its own and wants to buy time before making up its mind. The juniors have essentially been brought under its umbrella to prepare them for the 2018 World Cup.

The AFC ad-hoc committee for Indian professional football at its meeting here Wednesday decided to give the four clubs one more year’s time to fulfil the formalities to get registered as professional entities.

It was also decided that even if one of the four finish among the top three clubs in the I-League next season they will be ineligible to play in the AFC Champions League.

“The committee has decided to accept all the 14 teams in the next edition of the Indian Professional League. However, there are four teams (HAL, ONGC, Air India and AIFF XI) who have just not met one criteria for commercial entity. The eligibility for these four teams has been extended by one year,” AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam told reporters here Thursday.

“We are of the idea that professional football will be commercial football and it will help the clubs to sustain for a longer period of time.”

Asked how can the league be professional when clubs are failing to meet the criteria, AIFF president Praful Patel stepped in and said: “They have failed to meet just one of the several criteria so they are being given one year’s time to get it done. It is not easy for government clubs like Air India, HAL and ONGC to declare themselves as commercial entities.”

Last year Bin Hammam had asked the AIFF to come down hard on erring clubs, who have failed several deadlines to meet the club licensing criteria.

But this time around, Patel, who is the union heavy industries minister, appealed to the AFC president to give some more time to the three public sector undertakings and Indian Arrows to convert themselves into commercial holdings.

A AIFF top official told IANS that Wednesday night Patel told Hammam that it was very difficult to covert government-run departmental clubs into a commercial entities overnight.

For the record, second division I-League club Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) Football Club, which is also a PSU under ministry of heavy industries, has declared itself a commercial entity.

The ad-hoc committee also suggested that the top two second division teams would be eligible for promotion to the first division only if they fulfil the professional league criteria. In case they fail to meet the criteria then there would be no relegation of any club from the first division, which would continue with the same 14 teams.

The committee also extended the deadline for the clubs to improve their infrastructure by July before the final inspection in July-September. The I-League will kick off in September.

The committee proposed that the I-League regulations should be revised to ban the registration and participation of clubs in any other league.