New Delhi:
National football team captain Sunil Chhetri's participation in the much-anticipated Indian Super League still remains doubtful as the organisers of the new tournament are unlikely to extend the June 30 deadline set for signing India players under the central player pool draft.
With time running out, Chhetri, in all likelihood, may witness the ISL action from the stands as his team and I-League champion Bengaluru FC is yet to take a call on loaning its player for ISL's central player pool draft.
Similarly, three other clubs—Pune FC, Salgaocar FC and recently disqualified Goan club Churchill Brothers—too have not moved on the ISL loan proposal.
"Indian Super League had set the deadline of 30th June for signing the Indian players centrally. During the early June Workshop, ISL had informed the clubs of having signed 80 players from the 85-odd required," a franchisee source said.
Indian Super League is ready to line up an impressive mix of experienced and young talented footballers for the Indian Player Draft, scheduled for the third week of next month. 32 of the current and recent 38 national players, including Gouramangi Singh, Subrata Paul, Syed Nabi, Nirmal Chhetri, Subhasish Roy Chowdhury, Denson Devadas, N Mohanraj, Sandip Nandy, Sandesh Jhingan, D Ravanan, would be star attractions who would vie for ISL clubs rosters during the Indian Player Pool Draft.
Additionally, clubs like Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Mumbai FC and others from Kolkata have already signed deals to loaning their players to ISL for the 10-week league, thus fulfilling ISL's key requirement on domestic players.
Each Indian Super League franchisee is required to have 14 Indian players in the squad of minimum 22, other than one marquee and seven international players. Guwahati-based side North East United and Goa club consortium are allowed to retain their 14 domestic players from the I-League partner teams, Shillong Lajong and Dempo FC.
