In a single, sweeping decree on May 17, the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) Club Licensing Committee (CLC-FIB) rejected the Premier 1 license applications of seven Indian Super League (ISL) clubs: Mohun Bagan Super Giant, Kerala Blasters FC, Odisha FC, Chennaiyin FC, Mohammedan Sporting Club, Inter Kashi, and Sporting Club Delhi.
The remaining seven top-flight applicants, Mumbai City FC, Bengaluru FC, FC Goa, East Bengal FC, NorthEast United FC, Jamshedpur FC, and Punjab FC, managed to secure their licenses for the 2026-27 season, but only with official sanctions attached.
The federation’s public explanation points directly to the Indian Club Licensing Regulations (ICLR) 2026, a dense framework designed to strictly enforce standards across five key pillars: Sporting, Infrastructure, Personnel & Administrative, Legal, and Financial. In theory, it is an objective quality-control mechanism built to elevate the professional standards of football in India.
But the ICLR 2026 framework, when cross-referenced with the federation's official financial records and the private consensus among top-flight executives, points to a vastly more cynical reality. To the franchises, club licensing has ceased to function as a tool for institutional development. Instead, it has not turned into a mechanism for revenue extraction, deployed against clubs, who are already struggling to survive.
To understand the current gridlock, one must first look to the official rulebook. The Indian Club Licensing Regulations segment club requirements into a rigid hierarchy of compliance:
Grade A Criteria: These are mandatory requirements. Failure to satisfy even a single 'A' criterion results in an immediate, outright rejection of the license application.
Grade B Criteria: These are also mandatory, but failing them does not trigger an automatic rejection. Instead, the license is granted "with sanctions", typically resulting in financial fines.
The seven franchises that secured their Premier 1 licenses "with sanctions" successfully cleared the Grade A criteria. Their punishments stem entirely from secondary Grade B technicalities.
One such technicality perfectly encapsulates the suffocating atmosphere. A sanctioned club was fined because its goalkeeping coach holds a UEFA B license. By standard European coursework, it is the direct functional equivalent of an AFC A license. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), however, does not formally recognize the equivalence for this specific tier under its current coaching conventions. Because of that rigid structural friction, the club was slapped with a financial penalty by the AIFF.
For these sanctioned clubs, the frustration isn't merely about writing a check; it is about the complete absence of institutional empathy during a period of unprecedented commercial volatility.
Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now
