Football: No clarity on AIFF’s cup competition this season

Kolkata: The Indian Super League (ISL) was a competition interrupted last season by national team engagements. Season 11, set to resume on Thursday after an international break, is largely free from such impediments with there being no breaks after the FIFA window in November.
According to fixtures released on Wednesday, ISL’s league phase will continue unhindered till March 12, 2025 once it resumes on November 23 after the year’s final FIFA window. Dates for the play-offs have not been announced but India’s qualification campaign for the 2027 Asian Cup is scheduled to resume on March 25, 2025. So the later rounds will be held after that.
This means All India Football Federation (AIFF) could struggle to hold its cup competition before April. Anilkumar Prabhakaran, the AIFF secretary-general, said on Wednesday that an update is possible in a “day or two.”
This is markedly different from how AIFF had planned the cup competition. In its calendar issued last February, AIFF had kept a seven-month window from October 1 to May 15, 2025 for the cup competition. “The Super Cup will run concurrently with the league season from October to mid-May,” the federation had said in a media release on February 6, 2024.
With the 2024-25 I-League, whose clubs also play in the cup competition, yet to start, the idea didn’t take off. I-League is not likely to start before November 15, another AIFF official said on Wednesday. With ISL fixtures released for the rest of the season, the idea of holding the cup and league concurrently could have to be shelved for at least one more season.
“The earliest we can do the cup competition could be April,” said the second AIFF official. With ISL clubs playing at least 27 matches in the season including the Durand Cup, the official did not rule out the possibility of not holding it this term. Not authorised to speak to the media, the official requested anonymity.
The cup competition being held after ISL has led to some franchises releasing foreign players. Yet, the cup competition’s winners being assured a berth in the Asian Champions League 2 qualifiers served as motivation but there is no clarity whether Asian Football Confederation will allow India 1.5 berths, the full berth given to the winners of the ISL league shield, in 25-26.
Won by East Bengal in 23-24, Super Cup was held during the Asian Cup finals with 16 teams including four from I-League. Started in 2018 as a tournament that would also involve clubs from I-League, then India’s top tier, Super Cup ran into trouble in 2019 when a number of I-League clubs pulled out. It resumed in 2023 after Covid-19.