Football Sports Development Limited

Company operating the Indian Super League

Football Sports Development Limited

Industry	Sports Sports services
Founded	2 September 2013; 10 years ago (2013-09-02)
Founder	IMG Reliance Industries Star Sports
Headquarters	Mumbai
Key people	Nita Ambani (Chairperson) Sanjog Gupta (Director) Martin Bain (CEO)
Parent	Reliance Industries (65%) Star Sports (35%)

Football Sports Development Limited is an Indian company established to operate the Indian Super League, the top tier football league in India. The company is run as a subsidiary of Reliance.^[1] FSDL serves as the commercial partners of All India Football Federation.^[2]

Indian Super League

On 9 December 2010, it was announced that the All India Football Federation had signed a 15-year, 700-crore deal with Reliance Industries and the International Management Group.^[2] in that deal they agreed to form a new professional league for the development of Indian football

The Indian Super League was founded in October 2013 by IMG–Reliance, along with All India Football Federation and STAR Sports.^[3] The goal of the league was to make football a top sport in India.^[3] The league was modelled along the lines of the popular Twenty20 cricket league, the Indian Premier League, and Major League Soccer of the United States. The league started in October 2014 with eight teams and ended in December 2014 with Atlético de Kolkata coming out as inaugural champions.^[4]

The league saw stars such as Roberto Carlos, Alessandro Nesta, Tim Cahill, Asamoah Gyan, Robert Pires, Dimitar Berbatov, Nicolas Anelka, Wes Brown, Carlos Marchena, David Trezeguet, Alessandro Del Piero, David James, Elano, Robbie Keane, Diego Forlán, Marco Materazzi, Freddie Ljungberg, Joan Capdevila, Aaron Hughes, Florent Malouda, Kostas Katsouranis, Luis García and Hélder Postiga come to India.^[5]^[6]

Development League & Next Gen Cup

In June 2021 it was proposed by the organisers of ISL after a meeting with the CEOs of all the ISL clubs, that a new developmental league, called Reliance Foundation Development League, would be introduced in 2022.^[7] This new league would consist of the youth and reserve teams of all the ISL clubs, with aim to develop young players as there has been limited number of competitions and leagues outside the ISL since the pandemic. The teams would predominantly feature U-21 players with few overage players allowed as well.^[8] The inaugural season of the proposed two-month league was to be held in Goa inside a bio-secure bubble between January and March, following the same medical and safety procedures for 2021–22 ISL season, but got postponed to April 15.^[9] Out of all the ISL clubs, ATK Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, NorthEast United and Odisha didn't participate due to lack of youth teams, thus only seven clubs took part in the league along with Reliance Foundation Youth Champs football team. The league concluded on 12 May with Bengaluru topping the table and becoming the inaugural champions. Along with Bengaluru, Kerala Blasters qualified for Premier League's NextGen Cup 2022 in the UK as the top two teams in the league.

References

^ Bali, Rahul (21 August 2014). "ISL's success depends on the teams – Anupam Dutta". Goal.com. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
^ ^a ^b "AIFF signs 700-crore deal with IMG-RIL". Times of India. Archived from the original on 30 May 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
^ ^a ^b "Reliance, IMG Worldwide, and STAR India Launch Indian Super League for Football". IMG. Archived from the original on 8 October 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
^ "ISL: Atletico de Kolkata beat Kerala Blasters 1-0 to win title". Times of India. 20 December 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
^ Crocker, Sam (7 October 2014). "Indian Super League: club-by-club guide to the inaugural season". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
^ "Wanted to continue with Mumbai City FC: Diego Forlan".
^ Bangde, Arjun (30 June 2021). "ISL to propose a new league for reserve and U-21 players". Football Counter. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
^ Marcus Mergulhao (30 June 2021). "ISL proposes new league for reserve, U-21 players | Goa News - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
^ "Hygiene officers and four sets of training protocols - What could be the 'new normal' during ISL 2020-21? | Goal.com". www.goal.com. Retrieved 6 December 2021.