AIFF ups spend on national teams, cuts I-League cost

The ₹134.33 crore budget of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), approved in Bengaluru last week, is an increase of nearly ₹49 crore from last year. With commercial partners due to pay ₹50 crore as per the 15-year agreement from 2010, AIFF has factored in increased contribution from FIFA, Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the Union government to make up for most of the shortfall.

From ₹7.30 crore last year, AIFF expects ₹16.21 crore as FIFA grant in 2023-24, according to the budget of which HT has a copy. The projected amount from AFC is ₹9.10 crore. It was ₹2.8 crore last year. A nearly four-fold hike in government grants for national teams, up to ₹24 crore from ₹6.56 crore in 2022-23, has been projected.

The budget approved a significant increase in spend on the men’s and women’s national teams and the Indian Women’s League (IWL) but pruned expenditure on I-League, where five new teams have been added.

From ₹13.13 crore in 2022-23, ₹21.50 crore will be spent on the national men’s teams. While expenditure on the senior team will increase from ₹3.09 crore to ₹5.26 crore in the year of the Asian Cup, ₹3.37 crore has been allocated for the U-23 team due to play in the Asian Games and Asian U-23 qualifiers. ₹4.42 crore, a three-fold hike almost, was allocated for “camps and tournaments” of the India U-17 team which trained for over a year and travelled to Spain and Germany before last month’s Asian championship. The allocation for the U-19 team is ₹4.2 crore ( ₹1.19 crore in 2022-23).

The women’s national teams will get ₹2.3 crore more, from ₹8 crore last year. Spend on the senior team will increase from ₹1.55 crore to ₹3 crore. From ₹57 lakh last year, the women’s national U-20 team has been allocated ₹2.50 crore, but after the year of the under-17 World Cup which India hosted in 2022, that amount for that age-group was reduced to ₹2.5 crore from ₹3.21 crore.

From ₹15.10 crore spent on I-League that had 12 teams last fiscal, AIFF has earmarked ₹14.20 crore for this season’s 16-team competition. The I-League second division will get ₹3.36 crore, down by ₹44 lakh from last year. ₹1.05 crore has been approved for a third division which returns to the league pyramid after 2006-07. IWL will get ₹1.8 crore more to ₹4.30 crore while ₹2 crore has been kept to start a second division league.

Concern over broadcast costs

Production cost for broadcast of AIFF events will come from the budget for tournaments, said an AIFF finance committee member. An AIFF executive committee member said that the amount spent on broadcast was between ₹13-14 crore. Shaji Prabhakaran, AIFF secretary-general, said the amount overlapped between financial years 2021-22 and 2022-23. “The amount for the last financial year will not be more than ₹7 crore.”

Around ₹7.98 crore was spent on production cost for broadcasting I-League games, said Gopalakrishna Kosaraju, former president of Andhra Pradesh Football Association in an email before AIFF’s AGM. Of this, nearly ₹2 crore was paid by the clubs and around ₹3 crore by AIFF’s commercial partners. The amount spent on broadcast for 2021-22 I-League was ₹2.35 crore, said Kosaraju. But then, it was in a single venue due to Covid-19 restrictions.

But spending approximately ₹16.63 lakh for two India women’s friendlies, ₹31.86 lakh for the U-17 youth cup, ₹9.62 lakh for two India-Uzbekistan U-17 friendlies and ₹1.21 crore for IWL, up from ₹26.91 lakh last season, got AIFF officials concerned. For perspective consider this: the cost of production for 199 games in the Kolkata league is approximately ₹35 lakh, according to Shoubhik Mukhopadhyay, regional manager of InSports TV, which has the broadcasting rights.

“We were trying to improve the quality of broadcast to attract more engagement. The amount spent in ISL will be around ₹16-17 lakh per match. It is the choice you make; what is the level of cameras, lenses, personnel, graphics and quality of technology you will use,” said Prabhakaran on Tuesday, over the phone from Zurich where he is attending a FIFA meeting.

Asked how AIFF would maintain that when I-League’s budget has been reduced, he said: “We cannot sustain such high investment so it will need to be done through some strategic ways. Speaking about them now could disturb negotiations.”

It was also alleged that for the youth cup and the India U-17 friendlies, no tenders for bids were invited. “The vendor was already working for us (in I-League). We extended their services,” said Prabhakaran. The production company’s crew was in Hyderabad for Sreenidi Deccan’s I-League games and hence asked to do the youth cup last January, he said. Ditto for the U-17 friendlies in Goa in January, where the crew was stationed for Churchill Brothers’ games.

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