East Bengal to give Guard of Honour to Gokulam Kerala before IWL opener

IWL matches to be live streamed on AIFF YouTube channel.

AIFF (All India Football Federation) has floated the idea of giving a guard of honour to GKFC (Gokulam Kerala FC) for the sacrifice they had to make of not playing AFC Cup (Women's) matches last year due to the FIFA ban.

Gokulam Kerala Women’s team lifted the Indian Women’s League trophy in 2019-20 and 2021-22. They played in the 2020-21 AFC Women’s Club Championship, finishing the main tournament round in third place. GKFC lost 1-2 to eventual champions Amman SC and 0-1 to Shahrdari Sirjan, before posting a 3-1 victory against Bunyodkor FC.

Gokulam Kerala once again lifted the trophy last year in May and as a result, earned the qualification for the AFC Women’s Club Championship (second time in a row). The team already flew to Uzbekistan in August but due to FIFA’s ban on the AIFF they were left stranded in Tashkent. 

The Sports Ministry got involved and reached out to the world football governing body FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to allow Gokulam Kerala to compete in the continental tournaments as scheduled despite the FIFA ban, but nothing went in India’s favour. Gokulam Kerala ultimately had to leave the tournament without playing a single match.

East Bengal have agreed to AIFF’s request for giving the guard of honour to GKFC. The inaugural match of Indian Women's League 2023 season has been shifted from JD Nagarwala Police Stadium, Shahibaug to Transstadia.

Why only the evening matches of the IWL are being live streamed?

The budget for the current IWL season was approved by the AIFF last year, so due to logistics issues AIFF decided to showcase evening matches with a five-camera setup. As the budget was approved last year there was no provision of adding into the approved budget.

The AIFF has decided to show evening matches in high quality instead of producing both games in low quality. Also, another factor could be the TRP (Television Rating Point) for early morning games.