New Delhi: The Mahindra Group’s decision to disband their football team may have hit Indian football hard but the extreme step taken by the Mumbai club management has several sympathisers among other corporate teams.

The top bars of most of the company-backed clubs are extremely unhappy with the way the I-League is being run by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and say football fans shouldn’t be surprised if a few more clubs go the Mahindra way in immediate future.

“I am saddened by Mahindra’s decision to pull out but I can understand their problem,” said Samir Thapar, the managing director of JCT, the company that runs the north India’s biggest and oldest corporate backed club.

“The I-League is without any charm and value and not run professionally at all. Someone should convince me why the JCT would continue spending so much money every season,” he asked.

“We certainly have no immediate plan to take any extreme measure but I am not sure how long we would be able to sustain,” Thapar said.

“The business is slow, yet we run the club as part of our social responsibility. In return, we get to play in a kind of I-League where the crowd is fast receding and the television coverage has been reduced to near zero,” said the JCT boss.

Equally dejected is Babu Mather, the founder director of Viva Kerala, a team run by a group of local businessmen in the state. “We are facing severe cash crunch and don’t know how long we will be able to drag it,” Mather admitted. “The problem is that I-League is run so badly that it also diminishes our chances of survival.

“Even the standard of refereeing in I-League is poor and is a dumping ground for non-qualified and inefficient match commissioners, who are sent only to make pleasure trips. No corporate team would survive if immediate overhauling is not done,” felt Mather.

A source in the Salgaocar club, who refused to be quoted, said though the club management is committed to the cause of football for more than 50 years, it is frustrated by the way the AIFF is running the show.

“We are already getting disturbing reports about Mumbai FC and Air India. The I-League in Goa is played under scorching sun in the month of April and May; in front of empty stands and with hardly any television coverage.

“If that is AIFF’s idea of promoting football, then let me predict, no corporate team would survive in the I-League in the next couple of years,” he said.