I-league or ISL, are clubs bigger than playing football for India?

I-League clubs have decided to follow the footsteps of the Indian Super League (ISL) franchises and have made it clear that they will release players for international ties only according to FIFA rules and not according to the whims and fancies of the national coach.

Just before India's World Cup qualifiers against Turkmenistan and Oman - on October 8 and 13 - coach Stephen Constantine wanted to have a national camp starting September 28. But the All India Football Federation (AIFF) turned down his request as the ISL was going to start from October 3.

Further, when the Indian squad was preparing to play Turkmenistan and the players were asked to report to Mumbai, ISL franchise Delhi Dynamos informed AIFF that their players - Robin Singh, Shehnaj Singh and Francis Fernandes - would join the national team directly in Dubai.

While I-League clubs would earlier release their players - with much discontent - whenever national camps were set up, I-League club Bangalore FC toed the ISL franchise line and refused to release its players for a preparatory camp ahead of the SAFF Games. And if clubs like East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are to be believed, this shall be the modus operandi henceforth.

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According to FIFA rules, a player shall be released for a period of four days if he is called up to play in a qualifying match for an international competition. The period of release shall be prolonged to five days if the match in question is held in a different continent.

For other matches, the release time of a player is 48 hours which includes preparatory time. Only if it is a competition organised by FIFA or a confederation and held in a period fixed/set in the calendar can a player be released for 14 days.

Anjan Mitra, general secretary of Mohun Bagan, said that in the future FIFA rules would be followed whenever players are called for national duty. "We will follow the FIFA rules and release our players accordingly whenever there is call for national duty," Mitra said.

Debabrata Sarkar, member of the executive committee of East Bengal echoed Mitra's sentiments. "We will wait and watch further developments in this regard. However, as of now I can say that during the I-League, if we are asked to release our players for national duty, we will follow FIFA rules and release players accordingly," he told Mail Today.

I-League CEO Sunando Dhar played down the club versus country debate and said that the AIFF could only request clubs to release players and beyond that, the AIFF's hands are tied by FIFA rules. "We can hardly do anything in this regard except for requesting the clubs to release the players. We are bound by the FIFA rules," he said.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)