Shrachi Sports announced legendary German World-Cup-winning footballer Lothar Matthaus as ‘the brand ambassador’ of the introductory Bengal Super League (BSL) football championship starting from 7th December across the state.

BSL, which will be organized by Shrachi Sports and IFA jointly,  will feature eight franchise teams from eight districts. The announcement was made on Friday in a media conference at a city hotel. It was also announced that Matthaus is coming to Kolkata next month.

Ayan Bandopadhyay, CEO of Shrachi Sports, said in the media conference, “The key purpose of starting BSL is to create the supply-line of Bengali footballers for the Indian team in the future. In recent years, Bengali footballers have been hardly seen in the national teams of most of the age-group teams as well as the senior national team. Even Bengali footballers are rarely observed in the country’s top-flight championship, ISL. But there is no dearth of potential Bengali footballers and most of them can be noticed across the districts. So, BSL, following the IPL format will help spot quality Bengali footballers for the national teams in the future. BSL will also inspire the ISL teams, especially East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, to think about recruiting potential Bengali footballers in the future.”

The eight franchise teams from districts like Siliguri, Maldah, Birbhum, North and South 24 Parganas, and Howrah, will be participating in the BSL. In a bid to emphasize on participation of Bengali footballers, rules have been made that each team will be able to field only two foreigners and two national-level out-stationed footballers in a match. They have to put seven Bengali footballers, including under-19 footballers, on the ground.

The agreement between Shrachi Sports and IFA has been made on a 10-year basis to run BSL.

Significantly, former India internationals from Bengal will also be working with eight franchise teams as mentors during the League.