“Nobody said it was easy; no one ever said it would be this hard,” sang Coldplay in The Scientist. Over the past week, those words have echoed through Indian football, capturing the shock and uncertainty engulfing the sport.
Financial bleed and mounting losses are not new terms in the Indian football ecosystem. Neither is the resultant fate – the folding up of a football club. Yet, Jamshedpur FC’s decision to withdraw from the Indian Super League has sent shockwaves. That is less due to the club’s footballing stature than to who owns it – the Tata group – which has been closely tied to Indian football for nearly four decades and is currently in a Rs 2,500-crore, five-year partnership with the Indian Premier League.
FC Goa CEO Ravi Puskur admitted his astonishment. “It’s deeply unfortunate. The Tata Group has been one of Indian football’s strongest pillars for decades. Nobody could ever imagine a day a Tata-owned club would cease to exist. We did not see this coming at all,” he told The Indian Express.
Neither did Mandar Tamhane, the CEO of NorthEast United. “It came as a surprise to everyone involved in Indian football. You don’t expect a corporate house like the Tata Group to step away. If it were an organisation that had been involved in the sport for just two or three years, you could perhaps understand it. But this is a group that has been part of Indian football for over three decades. That’s why I think the decision caught all of us off guard,” he said.
Chennaiyin FC CEO Ekansh Gupta shared the sentiment, even as he understood the rationale. “We’re deeply disheartened to see such a major name leaving the Indian football ecosystem. Like everyone else, we’d urge the Tatas to reconsider. At the same time, we also understand that the concerns they’ve raised, particularly around finances, are genuine.”
Industry estimates suggest that the ISL clubs are facing approximately Rs 25-30 crore losses every season. A major blow, as per CEOs, is the expiry of FSDL’s commercial agreement with the AIFF. Under that deal, Reliance’s subsidiary paid the federation Rs 50 crore annually. Broadcast revenues have since collapsed, with the per-match valuation reportedly falling from Rs 1.68 crore during the 2024-25 season to just Rs 9.5 lakh last season.
“At the moment, club football in India is still being funded largely from the owners’ pockets. Broadcast revenue has effectively fallen to zero,” informed Gupta.
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Mounting Losses
If shrinking revenues are one side of the equation, soaring wage bills are the other, and perhaps, the bigger factor. Hyderabad FC, unable to sustain its losses, was sold to the BC Jindal Group last year and rebranded as SC Delhi. CEO Dhruv Sood said the club consciously resisted entering the salary spiral.
“We’ve always maintained one principle: if we can’t afford a player, we won’t sign him and put the club’s future at risk. We haven’t received a single rupee in central revenues yet, so we’re still absorbing losses. But we’re working towards breaking even. The biggest cost, that is the player wages, is still in our control,” he said.
Tamhane said, “Every club is facing losses. No club can say they are in profit. That makes it even more important to be smart with every rupee that’s spent. Financial prudence has become absolutely essential. I believe clubs should invest more in youth development, because if you develop your own players, it reduces costs considerably.”
At Chennaiyin FC, Gupta believed course correction was a solution. “The biggest challenge today is player salaries. There has to be a market correction. Clubs have to accept responsibility too—it wasn’t just agents or players driving salaries up. We, as clubs, also contributed to that inflation. That correction won’t happen overnight because many players are on long-term contracts. As those deals expire over the next year or two, salaries will gradually reset to more sustainable levels.”
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Broadcast Battle
As clubs grapple with rising costs, they also face another pressing challenge: securing a broadcaster. Commercial rights for the league were handed over to the clubs last month, leaving them responsible for negotiating the next media deal.
Puskur remained optimistic. “A lot of work is happening behind the scenes right now. Indian football is not just about doom and gloom. Yes, Jamshedpur stepping away is a setback. But if the rest of the ecosystem remains strong, Indian football can move forward. A broadcast partner is currently being finalised through a live tender, and we will have the league in a full home-and-away format that the fans will enjoy.”
“Once the broadcast tender is completed, there’s a partner in place for the next two to four years,” said Gupta.
Sood, too, argued against writing the league’s obituary.
“If we keep telling people that Indian football is collapsing, then no one will invest. The league model is in place. There are still commercial discussions happening, and people are out in the market speaking to potential partners.”
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The Indian Express has learned that Kerala Blasters and Diamond Harbour FC are currently in a non-functional state. Magnum Sports, owners of the Blasters, are in discussions over a complete stake sale, while the newly promoted Diamond Harbour FC face an uncertain future following the 2026 West Bengal legislative assembly elections, with the ‘chief patron’ of the club being the general secretary of Trinamool Congress, Abhishek Banerjee. Neither club could be contacted for a comment.
The deadline for ISL’s media rights bids is understood to be August 8, with the new season scheduled to begin in October. What remains uncertain is how many clubs will line up.
