India’s Tata Steel offload top-flight club Jamshedpur for $1
FILE PHOTO: A company logo is seen outside the Tata steelworks near Rotherham in Britain, March 30, 2016. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
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Aug 14 : Tata Steel sold all its stake in Indian Super League side Jamshedpur FC to Goa-based club Churchill Brothers for a token amount of 100 Indian rupees ($1.05) on Friday, two weeks after the conglomerate announced it was pulling out of the ISL.
Twice national league champions Churchill Brothers will take over Jamshedpur’s sporting licence to play in the top-flight ISL, and the contracts of 12 players and two coaches, Tata Steel said in a statement.
“We are glad that this agreement gives our players and coaches the opportunity to continue playing club football,” D. B. Sundara Ramam, Tata Steel’s vice president of corporate services, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Jamshedpur players issued an emotional plea to the club’s owners to reconsider closing down the club, which won the ISL League Winners’ Shield in 2021-22 and the domestic Super Cup last year.
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In the following days, Jamshedpur fans took to the streets to appeal to the Tata Group, one of India’s biggest conglomerates, to keep the club going. But Friday’s announcement ended their hopes.
The city of Jamshedpur, in the Eastern state of Jharkhand, has lost its sole top-flight team, with Churchill Brothers based in the soccer-mad state of Goa, nearly 2000 km south.
Jamshedpur are still playing in the Durand Cup, where they will face Mohun Bagan in the quarter-finals on Monday.
TATA EXIT AMID ISL UNCERTAINTIES
Jamshedpur, who entered the ISL in 2017 when the league was backed by Indian conglomerate Reliance, are stepping away less than a year after the All India Football Federation’s commercial partnership with Reliance ended.
The ISL has yet to announce this season’s fixtures and broadcaster.
“We thank AIFF and Churchill Brothers for their partnership in making this transition a smooth one,” Sundara Ramam added.
The AIFF declined to comment.
‘BACK WHERE WE BELONG’, SAY CHURCHILL BROTHERS
Churchill Brothers, who last played in India’s top flight in 2013-14, had hoped to be promoted to the ISL after topping the second-tier I-League in 2024-25, as the AIFF appeals committee ruled that Inter Kashi had forfeited multiple matches for fielding an ineligible player.
But Kashi successfully appealed the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, overturning their points deduction to become champions instead. Churchill Brothers withdrew from the league the following season.
“We had to be back where we belong,” the club posted on Instagram. “Our President Churchill Alemao … never stopped believing. Somehow, he always finds a way.
“While some saw decline, we saw opportunity. While some saw the end, we saw another beginning.”
($1 = 95.4250 Indian rupees)
Source: Reuters
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