'This Isn’t Just Our Heartbreak': Inside the I-League Title Controversy That Shook Indian Football
"Imagine fighting your whole life for one moment... and then when you've finally earned it, they take it away."
∼ Churchill Brothers, Instagram, April 13, 2025
On April 13, the Churchill Brothers broke their silence on Instagram. The post was not a celebration of glory but a heart-wrenching indictment. They posted words soaked in anguish alongside a collage of their decorated history: two I-League titles, a Federation Cup and eight Goa Pro League triumphs.
“No explanation. No fairness. Just silence,” they wrote. “We earned the title... and it was stolen from us.” This post captures the storm swirling around Indian football after the 2024–25 I-League season ended not with a trophy lift but with a deadlock. Two clubs, Churchill Brothers and Inter Kashi, are locked in a bureaucratic battle, each claiming to be rightful champions. The league officially concluded weeks ago, but the title remains undecided as fans, players and officials await the All India Football Federation (AIFF) verdict.
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The making of a mess: A league with no winner
The 2024–25 I-League was supposed to be the season of Churchill Brothers' return to glory. The Goan club, a cornerstone of Indian football history, finished top of the table with 40 points. Inter Kashi, an ambitious and rising side from Uttar Pradesh, followed closely with 39. On paper, the league had a clear winner. But off the pitch, a bureaucratic dispute exploded, throwing the title and promotion to the Indian Super League into a vortex of appeals, technicalities and administrative paralysis.
The controversy centres around a January 13 match where Inter Kashi lost 0–2 to Namdhari FC. Inter Kashi later contested that Namdhari had fielded an ineligible player, Brazilian forward Clemson Carvalho da Silva, known as Degol, who, they argued, had accumulated four yellow cards and should have been suspended under AIFF rules. One of the yellow cards had been issued in a match where Degol was also sent off, a rare but valid situation that added to the confusion.
On February 24, the AIFF Disciplinary Committee upheld Inter Kashi’s protest and awarded them a 3–0 win, giving them a three-point boost that would place them above Churchill Brothers. Namdhari appealed, and on March 28, the AIFF Appeals Committee stayed the decision, temporarily restoring Churchill to the top. Inter Kashi responded with a counter-appeal. A final ruling, initially scheduled for April 28, was brought forward to April 12 under public pressure. But as of now, no decision has been shared.
The I-League officially concluded on March 31, and after weeks of uncertainty, the AIFF Appeals Committee finally declared Churchill Brothers as champions on April 19, confirming their promotion to the Indian Super League for the 2025–26 season. The verdict ended one chapter, but not the story. Inter Kashi, the runner-up and aggrieved party in the yellow card dispute, announced they would approach the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), calling the decision procedurally flawed and premature.
In the meantime, both clubs staged victory celebrations. Inter Kashi hoisted their coach, Antonio Habas, while Churchill Brothers held a pitchside huddle in Goa. Yet neither side could say with certainty whether they had actually won. Even the AIFF’s official match reports carefully used language like “kept their title hopes alive”, revealing, through caution, the federation’s own uncertainty.
This isn’t a last-minute VAR decision or contested offside. This is a systemic deadlock. A national league run by the country's apex football body is stalled over a disputed yellow card from three months ago. Players, coaches and clubs who endured an entire season now wait endlessly for clarity.
And then came the breaking point. Churchill Brothers declared they would withdraw from the Super Cup, where they are set to face ISL champions Mohun Bagan unless their I-League title is officially recognised. “First, I want my league trophy. Then I will think of another trophy,” said club CEO Churchill Alemao.
This isn’t just about one title. It’s about the credibility of the league itself. Promotions and relegations are the bedrock of competitive football. When these outcomes are delayed or decided in boardrooms, they undermine the sport's very legitimacy. The whistle has blown. The season is over. But the outcome remains under review. This is not just a missed opportunity in a country striving to elevate its footballing status. It is an institutional embarrassment.
ISL vs I-League: The bigger betrayal
To understand why the I-League’s ongoing title crisis feels like more than a one-off administrative failure, one has to revisit a deeper betrayal that’s been years in the making: the systematic marginalisation of India’s oldest professional football league in favour of a glossier, corporatised alternative, the Indian Super League (ISL).
The I-League, once India’s top-tier football competition, didn’t just fall out of favour. It was deliberately demoted. After 12 seasons as the primary platform for competitive domestic football, the I-League was relegated to second-tier status in 2019. This wasn’t due to poor performance or lack of interest but rather contractual obligations that the AIFF had signed with IMG-Reliance, its commercial partner and co-owner of the ISL.
The ISL was launched in 2014 as a franchise-based product, inspired by the glitz of the IPL and modelled after American leagues like the NBA and NFL. Its appeal was visual and commercial: Bollywood owners, foreign marquee players and primetime slots. But it came with a trade-off, and it was a closed league. No promotion. No relegation. The entry came through payment, not performance.
In 2016, the AIFF proposed a new roadmap: ISL would become the top division, while the I-League would be rebranded as League One. Only League One and League Two teams would be allowed to move through promotion and relegation. ISL clubs, however, were shielded and protected from relegation for ten years under the Master Rights Agreement. The spirit of open competition was replaced by franchised permanence.
The I-League clubs, many of which had decades-long histories and fiercely loyal fan bases, were pushed to the margins. Giants like Dempo, Salgaocar, and Sporting Clube de Goa pulled out of the league in protest. Others like Minerva Punjab and Aizawl FC took the fight to FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation, accusing the AIFF of creating a two-tier system without transparency or fairness.
Even then, the I-League remained resilient. Clubs like Aizawl FC and Chennai City FC won dramatic titles, nurturing local talent and proving that community-rooted football could still thrive. But visibility faded. Matches were moved to weekday afternoons, denied airtime and star players were siphoned off by richer ISL outfits.
The AIFF’s defence? That the ISL had higher stadium attendance and better TV numbers. But this was always a matter of design. ISL games were given primetime evening slots and blanket media coverage. The I-League, in contrast, was set up to fail and then criticised for failing.
And now, the chickens have come home to roost.The current title controversy is not an isolated event. It is the result of years of erosion, where football’s meritocratic core was sacrificed at the altar of marketability. When league positions are determined by appeal hearings instead of on-field results, and clubs have to plead for recognition on Instagram, the structure itself is broken.
The ISL may offer better optics. But the I-League built Indian football’s soul from the narrow lanes of Kozhikode and Aizawl to the grassroots fields of Goa and Punjab. It nurtured talent, built rivalries and gave Indian players real match experience. And yet, it has been treated like a relic instead of a foundation.
This is the bigger betrayal. The idea is that in India, legacy means less than a cheque. Winning a league does not guarantee promotion. That playing by the rules may not matter unless you're in the right room with the right investors. Until this two-tiered system is fixed structurally and philosophically, Indian football will continue to stumble because a footballing nation cannot rise by building its future on the ruins of its past.
A corporate league, but no national vision
The result of this overhaul is what we are witnessing today: a league that cannot crown a champion on time, a governing body that hides behind silence, and a football ecosystem fundamentally disconnected from its grassroots. It’s not just a crisis of management. It’s a crisis of imagination.
And here is the crux of the matter: if Indian football is going to sell itself as corporate glamour with glitzy franchises, ageing foreign imports and glossy branding, then the national team should, at the very least, be able to beat Bangladesh. It cannot.
Over the past decade, India’s senior men’s national team has hovered between FIFA rankings of 96 and 117, stagnating, if not regressing. At the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, India failed to score a single goal and crashed out at the group stage. In the SAFF Championship, India lost to Bangladesh, a team ranked 40 places below them at the time. In the ongoing qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, India has failed to advance past the second round, drawing or losing to teams like Nepal, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, at the youth level, there’s little to celebrate. The U-20 team failed to qualify for the AFC U-20 Championship, and the U-17s once considered the bright spot after the 2017 U-17 World Cup, have faded into anonymity. Even the women’s team ranked 56 in 2019, has now slid to 66, with players voicing frustration over institutional neglect.
Yet, in 2022, the AIFF launched a grand blueprint: Vision 2047, a roadmap to make India a “powerhouse” of Asian football by the time the country marks 100 years of independence. The document is full of promises: a vibrant football culture, an expansive youth scouting network, professional academies, and promotion-relegation at every tier.
But the reality on the ground tells another story. The roadmap claims that every district will have a structured league by 2026. In 2025, most states are still struggling to conduct uninterrupted zonal tournaments. Vision 2047 projects 5,000 AIFF-licensed coaches by 2026. As per AIFF’s own registry, the current number is barely 1,100. Many ISL teams have no serious grassroots academy, while I-League clubs with decades of community-building experience are being structurally sidelined. It’s easy to rebrand. Harder to rebuild.
What the ISL has succeeded in doing is creating a spectacle. But football isn’t built on spectacle alone. It is built on patience, structure and purpose. It is built in the muddy fields of Malda, the quaint hills of Aizawl, and the crowded maidans of Kolkata, not in boardrooms in Mumbai. The corporate experiment has created clubs. It has not created a footballing culture. It has not created trust. And it has certainly not created a national team that can compete in Asia, let alone the world.
Until the AIFF’s vision translates into grassroots investment, community accountability and a merit-based league system, Vision 2047 will remain what it is today: a document full of promises waiting to be believed. Because a country cannot rebrand its way to the FIFA World Cup, it has to earn its place.
Final whistle or final blow?
The damage is already done if the AIFF Appeals Committee delivers its ruling on April 12, April 21, or never at all. Instead, what should have been a proud, competitive conclusion to the I-League has become a cautionary tale. One more chapter in the long, slow unravelling of Indian football’s credibility.
This is not just about Churchill Brothers or Inter Kashi but about what it means to win in Indian sport. And what it means when winning even after 90 minutes and 22 matchdays is not enough. As the Churchill Brothers said in their now-iconic Instagram post, “Let us compete where we belong. In the top division. With the best. For our people. For football.”
But they are not just asking for justice. They are asking for a future. A future where goals, not grievances, determine leagues. Where clubs that invest in local talent, community loyalty and consistent performance are not sidelined by closed-door deals. From the grassroots in Mizoram to the academies of Kerala and the old clubs of Goa, India's football ecosystem is given structure, support and respect.
Until Indian football begins to reward merit over money, structure over spectacle and people over profits, no trophy, Super Cup or otherwise, will matter. The glory will always be hollow. The leagues will always be fragile. And the dream of competing on the world stage will always remain out of reach. The 2024-25 I-League has now crowned a champion. But the rest of us – players, fans, clubs and communities – already know who lost. Not Churchill. Not Inter Kashi. But Indian football.
And with Inter Kashi preparing to take the fight to CAS, the final whistle might still echo through courtrooms long after it faded from the field.
Sangmuan Hangsing is a public policy student at the Kautilya School of Public Policy.
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