I-League 2022-23 football season will start on November 12 and will end on March.
The upcoming season will also see the I-League return to its traditional home-and-away format after the last two editions, played in a shortened format, were held across different venues in West Bengal – Kolkata, Kalyani and Naihati – due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The return to the traditional format means each team will play the other twice, once at home and once away. There will be no bio-bubbles and teams will be free to move around.
I-League 2022-23, the 16th edition of the football competition, will feature 12 teams – Aizawl FC, Churchill Brothers, Gokulam Kerala FC, Mumbai Kenkre, Mohammedan Sporting, NEROCA, Punjab FC, Rajasthan United, Real Kashmir, Sreenidi Deccan, Sudeva Delhi and TRAU.
In the opening match, defending champion Gokulam Kerala FC will face last season’s runners-up Mohammedan Sporting.
Gokulam Kerala FC will enter the season as two-time reigning champions and are chasing a historic hattrick. No team in Indian football history has won the I-League thrice in-a-row.
While East Bengal are the only other club to win back-to-back domestic titles, then known as the National Football League (NFL), in 2002-03 and 2003-04.
Gokulam Kerala will play six of its home matches at the Payannad Stadium in Malappuram, while the other five will be played at the EMS Stadium in Kozhikode, where it has already been playing in the previous campaigns.
The Bakshi Stadium in Srinagar will also make its I-League debut, with Real Kashmir FC shifting to the venue from February onwards.
The Deccan Arena in Hyderabad and the Chhatrasal Stadium in New Delhi will be the other two venues debuting in the league this season for Sreenidi Deccan FC and Sudeva Delhi FC, respectively.
Kenkre FC will be hosting its home games at the Cooperage in Mumbai. In Delhi, the Ambedkar Stadium will host Rajasthan United FC.
Among the other clubs, Mohammedan Sporting will operate from the Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata, Churchill Brothers FC from the Bambolim Stadium, Goa, Aizawl FC from the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Aizawl, RoundGlass Punjab from the Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Panchkhula, while Imphal clubs NEROCA FC and TRAU FC will operate out of the Khuman Lampak Stadium.
Indian Arrows, the developmental team run by the All India Football Federation (AIFF), however, will not play in the upcoming tournament after the project was dissolved earlier this year.
Inputs from Sportstar & Olympics Website
