 All right, so yesterday there was a meeting finally happened, a meeting that had been long in the making, a meeting between the ILEE clubs and the president of the All India Football Federation, Mr. Praful Patel. This meeting took place in Central Delhi. Meheer was there. Meheer, if you could kick things off, just give us an update about what happened, just the news of the day, in essence. So the meeting coincidentally lasted for 90 minutes, plus an extra 10. Unusually added extra time, like 6-7 minutes. It lasted for 97-98 minutes to be precise. Because of the VAR. Which was a surprise. By the way, there was a VAR in the referee code. Oh, we were supposed to do the newsy part anyway. Keep going, keep going. But when the news is funny. Yeah, I suppose it's all right. Praful Patel apparently had a conference call with IMG Reliance guys earlier in the morning and then he met the clubs. So what they have proposed right now to the ILEE clubs is that the current arrangement stays for another two or three years. They get time to play around, negotiate with the AFC and also the clubs right now. That's what Praful Patel is expecting, hoping that it will happen. We asked him if what will change in the next three years that he has been able to do right now already so far. And his explanation was pretty logical. He said that the five-year lock-in period that the ILEE clubs had, that would end. And that would give them a little more leverage. Whether it will happen or not is a big issue. But what struck me the most is the change in line of their approach. Till now we were talking about ISL's recognition and ISL being relevant. Now suddenly from there we have moved to ILEE getting AFC recognition. So when did this change? How did that change? Whether AFC will so agree, whatever AFC has to propose, that Praful Patel said isn't sure. And he ended by saying that if AFC doesn't agree to their proposal, then they will interrupt. Praful Patel is the AFC's man in FIFA now as well. So I would assume that whatever he's saying is an educated guess and he thinks that it is a workable solution. That said, is it also a little bit of putting the ball or sort of finding another avenue to play this out firing off the shoulders of the AFC? Because when I didn't do the AFC asking a bunch of questions about the league and what's happening in the league and what is AFC's reaction to it, their response was a pretty sort of blunt. We leave what happens in member associations, internal domestic leagues to the member associations. We don't get involved with that kind of stuff. How it looks like? So it's essentially AACC president right into the AFC vice president, right? I mean both are the same guys. So I mean I'd be very surprised if Praful Patel does not know what the end result is over here. He obviously is doing his guards well over here. For all you know, I mean I won't be surprised if a couple of weeks later AFC rejects the AFC's proposal and then you know AFC's that Nikhlo Bhai, we tried. That's it. So will the ISL mainly be the league or will Aaba be the second Fidel Reza? So I won't be surprised if something like that happens either. I haven't spoken to AFC so that you're saying is pretty interesting of what they have to say. I'm guessing they wouldn't have said anything different as well so far. Yeah, I mean I hadn't written to them right now. This was in a larger context because earlier there had been match fixing allegations for example. Then there were matches that were sort of rescheduled or didn't take place at all. And then the league was still concluded and we still don't, I don't know what the scene is on that game whether a decision has still been taken or not. So I was just wondering, I had just written to them to ask that do you guys see it? And if you do see it, is there some channel of feedback that you have some communication open and this was the response. So then it becomes like if we all of us know and all of us are speculating in a certain level then how did you manage, how have the club owners been convinced? What have they been offered? Well, so the other interesting part was what the club owner said was that they were, there's a 24 hour sort of, everyone was to give everyone 24 hours and then talk about stuff. I don't know, like you're saying essentially it's an attempt. I mean also the bit about it being a minor point who gets the Champions League spot versus who gets the AFC Cup spot. I mean, I know it sounds like a technicality but only the top league can get the Champions League spot, right? But again, let's be honest, right? I mean, we talk about Champions League and AFC Cup slot and stuff but right now we are totally wasting our Champions League slot. I mean, honestly I don't have much sympathy for ILE clubs as well. They've been messing up for all so many years that they've reached this stage. So I mean, okay, that's the sympathy. Fair enough. So you're saying what? I was saying it's not, I think some of the, when we have a lot of these conversations, some of it is construed as a criticism of the ISL versus the ILE. I don't think, I don't know if necessarily that is the fight. You call the league whatever you want. You do whatever you want with it. No worries. But just make it an open league and allow like real football clubs to participate in that league. The question about the AFC Champions League spot and the technicality is exactly what he said right up which is that we used to earlier wonder about the relevance of the ISL. That the ISL will get an AFC Cup spot or not. What is the ISL? And now it's, the roles have been reversed. Now it's like, what spot will ILE get? What will ILE play? That's all it is. Like it's basically a demotion promotion. Yeah, certainly they have hinted at that yesterday. Yeah, exactly. But the bigger question I think the whole debate actually is how and where, why did AFF sign that agreement? Like the name of your show, were they smoking that when the deal was signed? I think if they were, perhaps they would not have signed the deal. I don't know. To be honest entirely. But so I want to ask you what has been happening? So this agreement was signed a long time ago, right? And a lot of us were around that time, writing the same stories and had also written at length about what this deal means because you don't need the master rights agreement to understand what IMG reliance bought from the All India Football Federation. The press release that they sent out on that December 2010 is enough to explain the entire scenario. So what have these clubs been up to for 10 years? And why have they realized today that this is going to happen? If I was a club then it's a fair question. 2016, 2016 rather. They kept on saying that iLeague is our premier league and iLeague is blah blah blah blah. When actually in 2010 they had signed a document which gave IMG the right to effectively they could have stopped iLeague and started their own tournament. It says it in as many words. Absolutely. So that bit I find very deceiving from AFF's pet and that's the only thing I have sympathy for the iLeague clubs. Apart from that, there's nothing else. I'm surprised why iLeague clubs did not try harder to find out what the contract clauses were back in 2010. I wonder what took them 9 years to figure that out and pretty wacky club owner at that time. I mean I asked the other iLeague clubs if they were around the contents of the MRN and Debashish Dutt of Mohd Pagan said that so until Ranjit Bajaj leaked the document and before he put it on Twitter he shared up to be with us and that's how we got to know about it. What happens, I guess a developing story meet. What happens? I think as things stand we will have an iLeague and an ISL this season as it was last season. Maybe, I don't know, we'll now find out how many clubs will be interested in putting teams into that iLeague given that it is now pretty clear that it will no longer be the premier division for football in India, right? But yeah, I mean if you still need a bonus investment and want to be associated with football, iLeague still remains a lucrative property so that should deter people who don't have to say 30 clubs and still be in football. The big question is this decision has been delayed 3 years so will we do this same episode in 3 years or will we just release this one again in 3 years? Time stamp, new time stamp and we'll do it again. Okay, new chroma maybe. Alright, thanks for your time. That winds up pretty much this sort of conversation about what's likely to happen with these clubs. Just a quick reminder, we're talking about here clubs. Now some of the clubs, three in particular that have been around before the ISL began, Mohan Bagan, East Bengal and Churchill. I think also before India began. Before the iLeague, anyway. So I guess this conversation assumes importance because some of these clubs have very significant fan followings and they're all trying to figure out now what will happen in the future, whether their clubs will continue to exist, what kind of competition they'll have to play in. We'll keep following that story of course with reactions from perhaps some of the club owners as they begin to process the situation and figure out what they do next. Thanks for joining in. Back very soon.