There are a few days to go for the launch of India’s inaugural professional football league (the I League), and a number of eyes across the world will be watching how it takes shape.

Indian football, of late, has not only generated interest in FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) but has also caught the eyeballs from a number of clubs in the English Premier League.

The latest to join the bandwagon are London-based Chelsea FC. Peter Kenyon, the chief executive officer of the club, is accompanying London Mayor Ken Livingston on an ongoing Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) conference here.

“If India can crack professional football for itself, then it will be good for football as a whole,” Kenyon told The Indian Express on Monday.

When asked about football’s task in India, Kenyon said: “I’m not sure it is about ‘taking on cricket’. With a population of 1.1 billion, India is sufficiently big for more than one sport to prosper.

“This Professional League should give the game a new dimension. But the onus will be on the federation and the clubs to make it a successful event.”

The Blues are a major partner of AFC with the ‘Vision Asia’ programme a grassroots development module for leveraging the standard of the sport in the continent. The London-based club is mulling the possibility of a partnership in the ‘Vision India’ programme.

“We have already set our feet in Asia with the Vision China programme, which is currently running in five cities. It has been a success for us and we want to replicate the same in India,” said Kenyon.

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