The Indians constantly refer to the ISL as the fourth most-watched football league in the world. In the first season, the average attendance was over 24,000. IMG-Reliance has been instrumental in driving the ISL forward. The 2015-16 I-League featured just nine teams after Pune, Bharat and Royal Wahingdoh all withdrew. The I-League is set to become the country’s second tier league, but clubs from the I-league have complained bitterly that IMG-Reliance, the commercial partner of the Indian FA, the AIFF, has neglected the promotion of the league. In recent days Materazzi claimed that his former teammate Zlatan Ibrahimovic should come to the ISL. Alessandro Del Piero, Robert Pires, and coaches Zico, Marco Materazzi and David James have helped to keep the ISL in the news. The ISL franchises are owned by businessmen, crickets stars, European football clubs and Bollywood actors. The ISL is everything the I-League, established in 2007, is not: high profile, sexy and highly marketable. Indian football remains dramatically underdeveloped, but the advent of the brimming ISL, in its third season now, looks set to galvanize the game on the subcontinent. October 13 – The Indian Super League, the ISL, is shaking up Indian football as the league may usurp the I-League as the country’s principal competition as early as 2018.
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