Karnataka’s Own Franchise-Based Football League Soon
The good times for football fans in the Garden City is set to continue beyond the Indian Super League days with the Karnataka State Football Association (KSFA) planning to start a new professional tournament which will offer a whopping Rs 1 crore as total prize money, making it the richest state-level league in the country.
The state body, under president NA Haris, is giving final shape to the franchise-based league which will be modelled on the lines of KPL, run by the Karnataka State Cricket Association. The tournament is expected to feature eight teams from across the state but all the matches are likely to be played at the Bangalore Football Stadium.
“The tournament will be called Karnataka Football League and the plan is to conduct the tournament in May or June. We are in talks with the stakeholders and the All India Football Federation to finalize the details of the tournament in the coming days,” informed sources told TOI.
The state body is now in talks with a sports management company to get things done. “The plan is to have a tournament with eight franchises. Each team can be bought at a base price of Rs 50 lakh for a period of three years. At the moment we are looking at eight owners who can buy the franchises. The list of people who have expressed interest in buying the teams include owners of some of the top teams in the Super Division league. We are expecting to get expressions of interest from leading business houses and film stars as well,” sources said.
“The winners should get about Rs 50-60 lakh, making it the richest in the country. There will be eight franchises of which two will be from Bengaluru. There will be one each from Mysuru, Mangaluru, Belagavi, Hubballi, Ballari and one team from among Tumakuru, Kalaburagi and Mandya,” they added.
Each team is expected to have a purse of Rs 30 lakh to buy players from a central draft. “There will be a pool of players which will have top footballers from Karnataka, Kerala and Goa,” they said.
The promoters’ idea is to showcase some of the top players in the league. “The tournament will be held during the ISL off-season and that will help fringe players from ISL to feature in
Karnataka Football League .”
