



Inside India’s big sports power shift and what it means for cricket and beyond
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mumbai: The conference room in New Delhi was unremarkable. No television cameras, no press gallery, no fanfare.
Just 14 Indian Super League (ISL) club representatives, summoned on 6 January to hear a message that would redefine the relationship between the Indian state and the country’s sport. Sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya was respectful but unambiguous. Each club would pay ₹1 crore to participate in a truncated football season starting in February.
The All India Football Federation (AIFF) would organize it. There would be no alternative structure, no renegotiation. And, crucially—no option to decline or withdraw.
“The minister was courteous, but the message was firm," recalls one ISL club chief executive, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There was no option of not signing. You either accepted the deal or risked being shut out." The meeting salvaged a football season that had been in limbo for six months.
But its significance extends far beyond the ISL’s immediate crisis. What unfolded that afternoon was the opening act of India’s National Sports Governance Act—a law that became operational at midnight on 31 December, arguably the most comprehensive assertion of state control over Indian sport in the country’s history. The Act grants the government sweeping powers to regulate sporting bodies, oversee elections, resolve disputes through a central tribunal, and intervene where administrative failure paralyses sport.
Read on livemint.com