IMG-Reliance to be shown four venues in Kolkata for proposed IPL-style tournament

The Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata could be one of the venues for the proposed IPL-style football tournament

A team of AIFF’s commercial partners, Reliance IMG, is going to be in Kolkata early next week to have a meeting with Bengal’s state football association IFA and the state ministry regarding the proposed IPL-style tournament.

Although, the tournament is likely to be contested among eight city-based franchises, IMG-R are targeting ten centers as they cannot be certain about the infrastructure of every venue. A source close to Sportskeeda informed that IMG-R have already met state associations and in some cases state ministry in five centers: Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kochi.

Kolkata is next in line with the IFA likely to show the IMG-R team four venues – Salt Lake Stadium, Gitanjali Stadium, Barasat Stadium and Rabindra Sarobar Stadium.

It was learnt that IMG-R already have an idea about each venue but after selecting one from the four, they would want to know the details of the refurbishment which would be done to all facilities of the stadium including pitch, stands, dressing rooms etc. The remaining three venues will be considered for training purposes.

In these inspections, IMG-R are trying to find out requirements for both the short-term, i.e. for the first edition which is expected to start in January 2014, and long-term refurbishment. Their long-term plan is to transform some of the existing stadiums, which they will be booking and refurbishing for the tournament, into complete football venues.

Although details about many venues in different cities have been discussed by IMG-R with various state associations and state ministries, no stadium has been officially booked yet.

Each city-based franchise will be registered with a particular state association so the name of the Kolkata franchise will also be discussed with the IFA. Besides Kolkata, IMG-R are yet to have a physical meeting in Chennai and they won’t be visiting Goa until the conclusion of the Lusophonia Games later this year.

The source also confirmed that IMG-R are eager to sit down with I-League clubs and resolve the issue of not releasing players. But first the Indian FA’s commercial partners intend to make some progress of their own with regards to their newly proposed tournament like booking venues, registering the franchises, finalising the format etc so that there is more clarity about the event.