'India Needs Its Competitive Football': Sunil Chhetri And Gurpreet Singh Sandhu Make Emotional Plea For Indian Super League Season To Begin

Despite having all the love and backing from the fans, Indian football continues to find itself in turmoil. Crisis in Indian football is nothing new and it is the players and the fans that pay for everything wrong that is going in and around the sport.

Hope and heartbreak, Indian football players have been experiencing these emotions for quite some time now, but a pin drop silence surrounding the future of the Indian Super League (ISL) is nothing but worrying.

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Sunil Chhetri And Gurpreet Singh Sandhu Make An Emotional Plea

Sunil Chhetri has been Indian football's biggest poster boy for a very long time and on many occasions he has spoken his mind for the development of the sport in the country. The All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) tender that was launched on October 16 did not receive even a single bid. Things took an ugly turn when Mohun Bagan Super Giant, the defending champions suspended their first-team operations.

Sunil Chhetri, the Indian stalwart took to his social media account and made an emotional plea to the organizers of the League. Chhetri wrote that the players want to play the sport they love in front of their fans, friends and families.

'To put it simply, we want to play, and now. Our anger, frustration and distress has now been replaced by desperation. Desperation to play the game we love, in front of people who mean everything to us our families, our fans. This is a plea to all those involved in running our sport in the country, to do whatever it takes to get the football season underway. India needs its competitive football now more than ever', read Chhetri's post.

Indian team's goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu echoed the same sentiments as Chhetri. 'We find ourselves in the midst of our hardest challenge yet. And yet, all we can do at this point is plead', wrote Gurpreet as a caption for his plea.

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Indian Super League's Future In A State Of Limbo

Despite the ISL's uncertain future, East Bengal have continued to operate as usual. Despite existing for over a decade, the Indian Super League has failed to find itself new bidders. It has been reported that the financial model of the league has become unsustainable as there lack of long-term development plans which drained the investors.