Worried about the pull-out plans of leading ISL clubs, the Durand Cup organisers are considering financial incentives for participating teams in the 2025 edition of Asia’s oldest football tournament.
The tournament starts on July 22 and the final will be on August 23.
Last year, the tournament had a prize money of ₹1 crore, as it was in 2023, with the winners walking away with three trophies — President’s Cup, Durand Cup and Simla Trophy — and a purse of ₹60 lakh.
The runners-up team got ₹30 lakh. The rest of the ₹10 lakh was for the Golden Ball winner (₹4 lakh) and ₹3 lakh each for the Golden Boot and Golden Glove winners.
This year, the Army, which organises the tournament on behalf of the three Services, is mulling over an increased prize money with the losing semi-finalists and the quarter-finalists also set to get monetary benefits. “This may help the teams to motivate themselves for the tournament,” a source told The Telegraph on Wednesday.
The Durand Cup, which was shifted from New Delhi to Calcutta in 2019 and later to other parts of Eastern India, has run into rough weather this year after some of the ISL teams have more or less decided to skip the pre-season tournament.
Two former champions — FC Goa (2021) and Bengaluru FC (2022) — may not be participating, even though officially nothing has been announced. Odisha FC, Chennaiyin FC and Hyderabad FC are also thinking on those lines.
The impasse over the Master Rights Agreement between the All India Football Federation and Reliance-owned Football Sports Development Limited has forced the clubs to delay the start of the pre-season practice, and hence their unwillingness to play in the tournament.
Bagan, one of the crowd pullers and the 2023 winners, are also doubtful. Their pre-season is not expected to start before mid-August and the Bagan management is not keen to field a team with reserve players.
With arch-rivals East Bengal, defending champions NorthEast United FC and Punjab FC giving importance to the tournament, Bagan feel if the second-string side falters, it could draw the supporters’ ire.
Jose Molina’s men will play in the AFC Champions League 2, and FC Goa will fight it out in the AFC Champions League 2 Qualifier. Bagan’s campaign starts in September and FC Goa’s qualifier is on August 13.
The then ATK Mohun Bagan had given the Durand Cup a miss in 2021 on grounds of preparing for the AFC Cup inter-zonal semi-final against Uzbekistan’s FC Nasaf Qarshi. They lost 0-6.