Institutional teams have been an integral part of Indian football since independence, frequently winning trophies and accolades by defeating the established clubs. Many great players have come out from institutional teams, adding a fresh flavour to the sport. The National Football League, later I-League also witnessed at least one institutional side in its roster every season. 

Now, in a bid to revive the amateur football structure and honour the contributions of such great institutions to Indian football the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has planned to introduce an Institutional Football League across the country. 

The League, according to the AIFF’s last meeting held on 31st August last year, was planned to be staged in January this year. 

The AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey when asked about the League revealed, "We still have plans to introduce the League. However, we have not yet received enough applications from the teams for participation. The League needs at least eight to 10 teams for staging. We are waiting for applications.” 

It is learnt that the AIFF has received applications from four Institutional teams so far. Meetings on the League are likely to take place within next couple of months and the AIFF is planning to organize the League in the later part of of this year.

The pre-bid consultation meeting was chaired by Deputy Secretary General Satyanarayan M and attended by teams interested in the Institutional League to present the plan for the competition and understand the views of the institutional teams on Thursday, August 31, 2023.

Under the chairmanship of Deputy Secretary General Satyanarayan M representatives from 25 institutional teams like Aeronautical Development Establishment (Bengaluru), Air India (Mumbai), ASC Centre South (Bengaluru), Bank of Baroda (Vadodara), BSF North Bengal (Siliguri), BSF Punjab, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (Bengaluru), Indian Navy (Kochi), Indian Railways (New Delhi), IndiaPost Karnataka (Bangalore), JCT (Punjab), Karnataka Police (Bengaluru), Oil India Ltd - Assam Field HQ (Duliajan), attended the meeting.

The base participation fee for the Institutional League was set at Rs one lakh on an annual basis. Applicants were also made eligible for a concession of up to Rs 500,000 on the base participation fee depending on the teams' legacy evaluation score.

Former Air India coach, Dronacharya Bimal Ghosh opined, "I proposed to the Federation's new president to bring the Institutional football teams back to the mainstream of Indian football. The teams under the public sector not only produced a lot of potential footballers it created employment opportunities in Indian football. Introducing the Institutional Football League will benefit Indian football a lot.” 

Incidentally, Kalyan Chaubey has been selected by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to contest in the forthcoming Assembly by-polls in West Bengal. Chaubey will contest from Maniktala constituency, Kolkata.