By Admin 
The All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) efforts at finding a commercial partner to run the Indian Super League (ISL) hit a wall as the deadline for the submission of ‘request for proposal’ (RFP) ended on Friday without any bidder expressing interest in the national federation’s offer.
This puts the future of the country’s top football league under a cloud as the AIFF will have to think of a way to find an investor to finance the tournament and its associated functions once its contract with the existing commercial rights holder, Reliance subsidiary Football Sports Development Limited, ends this December.
After receiving a go ahead from the Supreme Court, which approved a new constitution in September, the AIFF floated the tender midway in October seeking a commercial partner for the next 15 years.
Some entities had showed interest initially and put out a host of queries which were replied to by the AIFF by the end of last month.
But the national federation failed to attract any bidder who would be prepared to accept its annual asking price of ₹37.5 crore apart from a host of other features including the ISL’s production, marketing and broadcasting rights among other things.
Federation’s response
“The AIFF Bid Evaluation Committee (headed by Justice L.N. Rao while having the AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey as a member) will convene over the weekend to review the situation and deliberate on the future course of action,” said a statement from the national federation after the bidding process came to a nix.