Key highlights from AIFF's 2025-26 budget

AIFF has decided on the financial year 2025-26 budget but until December 31st, 2025, only.

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has finalised a revised budget for the financial year of 2025-26, which will run until December 2025. The federation is still facing uncertainty over the future of the Indian Super League (ISL) as their Master’s Rights Agreement with FSDL (Football Sports Development Limited) runs out on 8 December 2025.

Because of a legal case ongoing about the constitution, the two parties have been unable to extend the MRA, as a result of which the schedule of the 2025-26 ISL campaign is still up in the air. The federation recently released its budget for the 2025-26 financial year, and there are some interesting revelations made from the budget.

The budget has only been decided from 1 April (2025) to 31 December (2025), and it includes the AIFF’s income from different sources as well as their expenditure. Here we shall have a look at the key highlights from the AIFF budget and the major takeaways from them.

Highlights from AIFF’s Budget

Parallels in expenses for the India Women’s national team and marketing

The AIFF revised budget has given a look at how much money the federation is aiming to provide to aid the Indian Women’s National team, when it comes to their travels for matches or financially supporting the players or staff members.

The federation is going to be sharing expenses for the operation of the Women’s Football teams (across multiple levels) by providing around ₹2.74 crore from April to the end of December 2025. SAI (Sports Authority of India) will be providing ₹2.25 crore to help the operations of the Women’s Football teams as well. In comparison, the Indian men’s national teams will see the AIFF invest ₹4.76 crore, over ₹2 crore more than the women’s teams.

Also Read: PR over development? AIFF budget favours publicity over women’s football

The interesting parallel when it comes to AIFF is how the federation is ready to provide an expenditure of ₹2 crore for their Media, Communication & Public Relations teams. Basically, the federation is ready to heavily invest in buffing up their media and PR personnel, perhaps a way to ensure that the federation is shown in a bright light on social media.

This is an attempt to try and negate some of the criticism the AIFF has received for their questionable operations in recent years. Even though the Indian Women’s Team recently secured qualification for the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup, the women’s sides at the national level continue to be underpaid and seemingly underappreciated by the AIFF.

Income takeaways

The federation’s revised budget has revealed that they are estimated to earn ₹84.18 crores for the first nine months of the 25-26 financial year. There are some interesting numbers that have been mentioned when it comes to the money that the AIFF expects to receive during this period.

For one, the AIFF is set to receive ₹37.50 crore from the FSDL as part of the agreement for the sale of the Master Rights Agreement. This will be the final part-payment for the 15-year agreement that was sealed in 2010, with FSDL paying FSL a major amount every year for the operation of the ISL.

The federation mentioned that they have received ₹14 crore already in advance, with the remainder to be paid out before the end of the year. The AIFF has also earned ₹18.05 crore as part of FIFA grants for the development of football. The AFC grants, meanwhile, are only around ₹2.05 crore, and the government grants accumulate to ₹7.50 crore.

The federation is also expecting a ₹6.82 crore income from coach education fees, even though portions of that fee will be used for the educational programs expenditure as well.

Low monetary grants for lower divisions

The AIFF is currently responsible for organising and holding matches for the I-League, I-League Two and I-League Three.

Take a look at the budget allocations:

• The federation appears to have set aside around ₹6.37 crores for the operations of the 2025-26 I-League, which should start in September or October 2025.
• The AIFF has only budgeted ₹1.27 crore for hosting the I-League second division for the 2025-26 season.
• For the I-League Three, only ₹86 lakhs has been granted by the AIFF budget.
• The AIFF Elite League has a higher budget of ₹1.35 crore than the I-League Three and I-League Two for 2025, which shows how low the priority level is for these lower divisions in Indian football.

Referee development programs underfinanced

There is very little debate about the fact that the referees in Indian football are in need of significant improvement. Over the last few seasons, the ISL and I-League teams have been frustrated by the poor quality of refereeing and their error-prone decision-making, impacting major results.

There is an ongoing push to improve the quality of referees by giving them more high-quality training or making the referees undergo programs or tests that can help them come within the reach of an international-quality referee. However, the AIFF doesn’t really seem that keen on heavily financing the sectors for referees’ development.

A budget of only around ₹1.24 crore has been allotted for the AIFF Elite Referee Development Program, and around ₹1.43 crore for the Referee Educational and Training Program for state referees.

This limited budget means that the federation is unlikely to employ high-quality referees or referee trainers to help educate the Indian officials because of the limited budget.

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