Why no foreigners are playing in Calcutta Football League 2024?

The decision was made by the AIFF Executive Committee in 2023.

The Calcutta Football League is one of India’s most prestigious football competitions, with its inaugural season dating back to 1898. Over the years, the league has given rise to some iconic rivalries, between the likes of Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, and Mohammedan Sporting.

In recent years, however, the stature of the league has somewhat fallen due to the emergence of the National Football League, and then the I-League and the Indian Super League.

Now, however, the Indian Football Association (IFA) are making efforts to revive the Calcutta Football League as a whole, looking to bring it back to its glory days. 

Amidst many changes that have been made to the league, the most prominent one stands to be the rule of no foreign participation in the league. 

Calcutta Football League’s new rule

Last year, the AIFF decided in a meeting of the AIFF Executive Committee, that no foreign players will be allowed to participate in any divisions of city, district and state leagues. 

Due to this very rule, we will not see any foreign players play in the Calcutta Football League 2024. The decision is believed to give a lot of opportunities to local talents and individuals, to emerge and stand out in their team – something that was earlier only achieved by top-class foreign signings. 

Last year, the no-foreigner rule was applied for the first time in the Calcutta Football League, and the impacts were quite positive. 

IFA Secretary and recently-appointed AIFF League Committee Member Mr Anirban Dutta feels that the no-foreigners rule introduced by the AIFF for the state leagues has had a big role to play in the league’s increased popularity.

“I must commend the AIFF for taking such a step. Kalyan Chaubey had called to ask us to implement the no-foreigner rule. We were not convinced at first, whether people would come to the matches if we lost the star foreign players, but then we somehow managed to convince our sponsors. Now we are seeing the results,” said Mr Anirban Dutta.

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