FIFPRO 'deeply concerned' over Indian league suspension, calls for swift resolution
FIFPRO said on Tuesday it was "deeply concerned" by the growing uncertainty surrounding Indian professional soccer, urging swift action to resolve the indefinite suspension of the Indian Super League.
The ISL, India's top-flight soccer league, was put on hold last month, with stalled negotiations for a contract renewal with its commercial partners, Reliance-led Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), cited as the reason.
Talks to renew the 2010 agreement came to a halt after India's Supreme Court asked the All India Football Federation not to renew the deal with FSDL until it had issued an order over a separate case to implement a new constitution for the federation.
The situation worsened earlier this month when Bengaluru FC, the 2018-19 ISL champions, stopped paying the salaries of their first-team players and staff amid the league's uncertainty.
"The lack of clarity for players over the 2025-26 ISL season, arising from a dispute over the league's organisation and governance that has led to its indefinite suspension, is having a significant impact on their livelihoods, careers, and wellbeing," FIFPRO said in a statement.
"Players have been subjected to unilateral and unlawful suspensions of their employment contracts until further notice. These actions represent a direct breach of the players' labour rights and are causing significant distress."
Reuters has contacted the AIFF and ISL organisers for comment.
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FIFPRO said it has been working closely with the Football Players' Association of India (FPAI) to address the players' concerns and has raised the matter with soccer's global governing body FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation.
The union of professional footballers further urged the AIFF, FSDL and club owners to collaborate with the FPAI to confirm the ISL schedule and provide a clear road map for the season to commence.
Additionally, it called on clubs to continue to meet all contractual obligations to players. REUTERS
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JUDGE'S FINDINGS District Judge Sim Mei Ling said she was not able to accept these incident rates. There were no documents produced to support the figures, and when Mr See took the stand, he denied supplying the documents for these figures, claiming he did not even know if they were correct. However, Judge Sim accepted that the probability of a train door closing on a passenger during train withdrawal is low. However, she said that even though the risk of similar harm was low, this alone was not sufficient to dispose of Ms Ng's claim. Judge Sim noted that Mr See himself had given evidence that there was nothing published to inform passengers that the dimming of a train's lights meant that the train would be taken out of service. She noted that Ms Ng's police report and evidence were consistent in that she had heard the announcement of resumption in service when the train was stationary at Punggol MRT station. While SBS Transit had submitted that Ms Ng was not a credible witness based on how she maintained being trapped for 12 seconds even though the videos showed it was, at best, for one to two seconds, the judge found her evidence "nonetheless consistent on the whole". Judge Sim said five other passengers in Ms Ng's carriage remained seated and started to leave only after the lights dimmed. This suggested that the announcement that had been played was of resumption of service and not to notify passengers that the train was being taken out of service. It was unlikely that all six passengers in carriage five missed hearing the out of service announcement in four languages, said the judge. She drew an adverse inference against SBS Transit, because it did not call two staff members as witnesses, including Staff V who had been in carriage five. Judge Sim found that SBS Transit had "more likely than not" played the announcements about the resumption of service instead of the out of service announcement. She also found that SBS Transit had failed to play the do not board announcement at Ms Ng's platform when the train was at Punggol MRT station. Therefore, she found that the transport company had breached its duty of care. It had failed to provide any form of warning, notification and or announcement to passengers before switching off lights in the train, and also failed to exercise reasonable care, skill and prudence in operating the train with passengers inside.
