What’s the story?
In what could be a historic development for Indian football, a Super Cup is slated to replace the erstwhile Federation Cup as the de facto League Cup of India.
This new tournament, which will have teams from both the Indian Super League (ISL) and I-League, will supposedly start from the last week of March next year, according to sources.
The heart of the matter
The Super Cup is likely to be named as the ‘Hero Super Cup’ due to sponsorship reasons. It will feature a total of eight teams and the top four sides from the ISL and I-league will enter the competition.
As it stands, the I-league winner gets to participate in the AFC Champions League play-off whereas the Super Cup winner will get to feature in the play-offs of the second-tier continental competition, AFC Cup. However, that isn’t going to happen this very season as it has already been decided that the 2017-18 ISL champions will get that chance.
Also, there is talk of the ISL and I-league getting merged from next season so in that case, it has to be seen what happens to the composition of Super Cup.