“Hero came and played the taaliyan and sang the picture where he was.
India looked like a footballing nation again for four days.
The stadiums were full. The phones were upstairs. Social media was filled with wonder and disbelief. When Lionel Messi arrived, the country leaned forward together, starstruck, emotional, eager to be a part of something rare. For once, Indian football did not have to justify its existence.
And then he left.
The cheering quickly died down. There followed a silence that Indian football knows all too well, all the more difficult because it came right after the spectacle. Messi’s visit created a football hype in India. (PTI photo)
Because even though Messi left with warmth and goodwill, the sport he represents here remained frozen. The Indian Super League (ISL) still has no season.
When the season disappears
What makes this moment unsettling isn’t just the uncertainty. It’s gone now.
We are halfway through December 2025. The year is almost over. Not only has the league season not yet started, but it is unclear if the competition will even take place this time around. The newly elected officials of the All India Football Federation, who came with a lot of promises, failed to deliver on all the points. Not only is there no league, but no players for the league.
Thanks Nikhil Naz for exposing the farce that was Lionel Messi’s India tour.
The cost of this tour was Rs. 120 million crowns.
At the same time, the Indian National Football League is suspended as no one is willing to shell out Rs. 35 million. pic.twitter.com/40nPI9pAUE— Parth MN (@parthpunter) December 18, 2025
But more on that later.
In a functioning soccer ecosystem, the league will be established in December. Units are known, ranks are formed, stories are beginning to take shape. Instead, the ISL quietly slipped off the calendar altogether.
The implications of a season that refuses to start are now hard to ignore:
- A preseason that no longer exists
Clubs need time, not guesswork. A minimum of five to six weeks of structured training is necessary to get teams match ready. With no start date in sight, even today’s announcement would push any realistic start to 2026. What follows is predictable: a rushed build-up, half-fit players and injuries waiting to happen.
- Contracts stuck in limbo
Most player and staff contracts are linked to the season, built around clear timelines and defined windows. With each week lost, clubs move closer to the legal gray areas involving salaries, extensions and departures. What started as uncertainty is now quietly eroding trust.
- Reform stopped before birth
The 2025–26 season was to mark a turning point that eventually brought promotion and relegation to the top flight. A delayed or compressed league threatens to reduce the long-awaited reform to a mere technicality. After all, structural change only works if it is built on stability.
- The continental significance is fading
Indian clubs are already chasing AFC competition at a disadvantage due to the fewer slots the country gets. The lack of slots is explained by the poor ranking of the national team in FIFA.
Things only got worse after MohunBagan Super Giants were banned from the competition for refusing to travel to Iran. And yes, it could be worse. Skipping or rushing the domestic season will only widen that gap.
You can’t borrow a competitive rhythm when continental matches arrive.
- The readiness of the national team is at risk
Match sharpness cannot be produced in isolation. Without the edge of competitive football, form inevitably fades and rhythm disappears. And with India’s FIFA ranking now at an all-time low of 142, the national game is already scraping rock bottom. This is hardly a moment when the ecosystem can afford prolonged inactivity.
Players continue training without clarity. Coaches are forced to plan without timelines. The fans are not leaving in protest, but thanks to slow fatigue. Long uncertainty splits faith far more quietly than defeat ever could.
At some point the delay stops being a pause and becomes a damage.
A league without a frame
At the heart of the crisis is the legal and commercial standoff between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL). The Master Rights Agreement, which governed the league from 2014 to 2025, expired on December 8. In September, a selection process was held to find a new commercial partner, which did not find any interested parties.
With the Supreme Court ordering the AIFF to maintain the status quo and avoid new business deals, the ISL was left without a revenue framework or operational clarity.
Central income has stopped. Several clubs have suspended first team activities. The players started calling. Indian football is now staring at something it hasn’t faced in nearly three decades: the possibility of no top men’s football at all.
At this point the clubs tried to take control of their own survival.
All ISL clubs except East Bengal have written to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports proposing that the league be run by the clubs themselves as a consortium, with the AIFF having a special stake.
The proposal proposes the establishment of a dedicated league company to operate, manage and commercially exploit the ISL, subject to compliance with AIFF, AFC and FIFA regulations. If approved, the clubs say the 2025-26 season could start within 45 days.
The financial details underscore how tense the situation has become. No payment to the federation is proposed for the current season. From 2026–27 onwards, clubs offered a fixed amount of Rs 10 crore per annum, regardless of whether a commercial partner is listed, with the AIFF bearing no commercial risk.
The clubs have acknowledged that parts of the plan would require amendments to the AIFF constitution, changes that are currently being dealt with by the Supreme Court. They also called for the creation of a joint task force involving the AIFF, the ministry and the clubs to navigate legal and regulatory approvals, including those from the AFC and FIFA.
The line is fine. Any move outside the AIFF framework risks FIFA’s scrutiny of third-party interference.
With the AIFF’s Annual General Meeting scheduled for December 20 in New Delhi, the future of the ISL and this proposal will dominate the discussion.
When players stop waiting
As the stalemate dragged on, the players did something that Indian footballers have been helpless to do all too often these days. They talked together.
There were identical messages on social media calling for the league to begin. The tone was no longer patient. It was urgent.
“Where we are right now is no longer delay, but stagnation,” wrote Sandesh Jhingan. “We’ve worked too hard, sacrificed too much to let our season slip away in silence.
FIFPro Asia/Oceania followed, accusing the federation of failing to take meaningful action and consult players whose livelihoods were at risk.
Dignitaries also got involved. Sunil Chhetri and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu have issued public calls for intervention, a rare and sobering sight.
Messi’s contrast
Against all this, Lionel Messi’s visit takes on a different meaning.
The tour brought joy, spectacle and a rare burst of genuine excitement around football.
But it also raised some uncomfortable considerations.
Jhingan acknowledged the luck We have seen India embrace football, but he questioned the timing, noting that the celebration came when the domestic ecosystem was at one of its most precarious points.
“We feel as if we are close to shutting down everything because there is no willingness to invest in football in India, yet millions have been spent on this tour,”
Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra echoed this concern. While praising Messi’s journey and legacy, he admitted that parts of the visit worried him.
“Are we building a culture of sport as a society, or are we simply celebrating individuals from afar?” asked Bindra.
Messi’s visit proved that India has the appetite, the audience and the emotion to celebrate football when the lights are on. It also showed how fragile that support becomes once attention shifts elsewhere.
– He booed the so-called actors
– Also boiled CM
– “Mumbaikar cha raja Rohit Sharma” chants
– We cheer loudest for Sachin and Lionel Messi
– And now he still respected Sunil Chhetri
Hands down Mumbai has the best audience!! pic.twitter.com/afP85XN8tH— (@jod_insane) December 15, 2025
Lionel Messi is not responsible for the crisis in Indian football. Expecting the presence of a superstar to solve deep-seated systemic problems would be unrealistic.
But when the greatest footballer of all time steps into the country during one of the sport’s gloomiest domestic stages, the symbolism cannot be ignored.
Until the focus shifts from momentum to some real good, Indian football will continue to applaud greatness from afar while struggling to maintain its own game. So goodbye Vision 2047.
Because Messi came, Messi left.
Indian football remained exactly where it was.
– The end
Issued by:
Debodinna Chakraborty
Published on:
December 21, 2025
