Chennaiyin FC’s Dutch midfielder Abdenasser El Khayati said on Wednesday that the Indian Super League (ISL) should have more teams for it to “effectively improve” and be “more exciting.”
He also said in jest that the league has to improve as much that it becomes like cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) that garners a large audience.
Speaking over a zoom call from Kolkata, he said: “It (the league) is quite good. It needs to improve that much that it will be like cricket. I was watching the game (IPL) yesterday (Tuesday) and I saw that the stadium was full! Now, just joking.
“Of course, if you look at the last five-six years of ISL, it has improved a lot. The quality keeps going up. If you see, every year you get more Indians in the list of top-scorers and top-assists. So, that’s a good sign for Indian football.”
RoundGlass Punjab FC, which won the I-League this year, will gain promotion to the top-tier ISL, subject to fulfilment of financial criteria as agreed upon by all stakeholders.
“But there is still a lot of room to improve, and I think the best thing to do is to add more teams to the league. But that’s my opinion. And this is being done now with RoundGlass Punjab FC also joining (promoted from the I-League for the 2023-24 season). And hopefully, in the near future, you can have two or three or four more teams which I think will make it more exciting and more effective for the improvement of the league.”
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