New Delhi: The All India Football Federation plans to hold the 2025-26 Indian Super League between February 14 and May 17 but might need “a few days” to finalise its fixtures, before which it mooted a two-part administrative structure granting clubs a considerable say in the top-tier competition’s governance.

To accommodate 91 matches in a single leg home and way truncated format for the hitherto stalled edition, AIFF plans to organise double-headers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Having received preferences for home venues from clubs on Monday, AIFF now plans to prepare draft fixtures on Wednesday, even as it hopes to get exemption from Asian Football Confederation for continental slots.

“The process starts tomorrow and it would be a few days before it shapes up,” a person aware of the development told News9 Sports.

New governance structure

Following a meeting with clubs on Tuesday, AIFF shared a charter of ISL’s foundational governance framework that would determine composition of its governing council and management committee.

Clubs had sought significant weightage in shaping of a sustainable model before a fresh commercial tender is issued for a 20-year period and in the framework unveiled, 14 of 22 governing council members while five of 11 management committee members would be from among them.

AIFF would have three members (president, vice president, treasurer) in the governing council, and similar number of representatives (secretary/deputy general secretary, head of competitions and head of strategy) in the management committee.

President or vice president will chair the governing council, which would also have two independent members (one nominated by AIFF and one by clubs), who wouldn’t have any commercial relationship with the any stakeholder and three nominated members from the commercial rights partner.

“All decisions of the Governing Council shall be taken by a simple majority of the Members, with at least two (2) affirmative votes from AIFF Members,” it is written in the document.

The rights partners would have power to nominate three members in the management committee, which would be chaired by the secretary/deputy secy.

The governing council will have supervisory role and delegate responsibilities through sub-committees while operational management, regulatory compliance, monitoring, stakeholder, financial and sponsorship managements would fall on the management committee.

The management committee would meet once a month while the governing council would convene at least three months before kick-off of season.

“The Governance Bodies may be dissolved only by the Executive Committee of the AIFF,” it is written in the document.

Four working groups, involving club officials, for fixtures/venue operations, commercial/RFQ for tender, marketing & digital working group and sponsorships were also set up.