2013–14 I-League

The 2013–14 I-League (known as the Airtel I-League for sponsorship reasons) was the seventh season of the I-League, the top-tier Indian professional league for football clubs, since its establishment in 2007. The season began on 21 September 2013, and ended on 28 April 2014.

I-League

Season	2013–14
Champions	Bengaluru 1st I-League title 1st Indian title
Relegated	Mohammedan
AFC Champions League	Bengaluru
AFC Cup	Bengaluru East Bengal
Matches played	156
Goals scored	402 (2.58 per match)
Top goalscorer	Cornell Glen Sunil Chhetri Darryl Duffy (14 goals each)
Biggest home win	Mohun Bagan 4–0 United (6 December 2013) Sporting Goa 5–1 Shillong Lajong (14 December 2013) Dempo 4–0 Sporting Goa (8 March 2014) Rangdajied United 4–0 United (9 March 2014)
Biggest away win	Shillong Lajong 0–4 East Bengal (9 October 2013)
Highest scoring	Mohammedan 4–5 Shillong Lajong (16 April 2014)
Longest winning run	5 games Salgaocar[1]
Longest unbeaten run	8 games East Bengal[1]
Longest losing run	4 games Salgaocar[1]
Highest attendance	80,000[2] Mohun Bagan 0–1 East Bengal (24 November 2013)
Average attendance	5,618[3]
← 2012–13 2014–15 →

Churchill Brothers were the defending champions, having won their second I-League title in the previous season.^[4]

On 21 April 2014, Bengaluru were crowned champions with one game remaining, winning their first ever I-League title by defeating Dempo 2–4 at Fatorda Stadium. Bengaluru FC also created history by becoming the first team ever to win the I-League title in its debut season.^[5] On 28 April 2014, Mohammedan were relegated from the I-League when Churchill Brothers defeated Salgaocar 2–1, and hence survived relegation. Churchill Brothers also avoided being the first defending champions to be relegated.^[6]

During the season, Maria Rebello became the first woman referee internationally to officiate in a country's premier league match when she officiated in Pune vs Shillong Lajong on 8 March 2014.^[7]

Teams

A total of 13 teams are currently registered to start the new season. Ten clubs from the previous campaign, two promoted sides from the 2013 I-League 2nd Division and one new expansion team.

Rangdajied United as champions and Mohammedan as runners-up secured direct promotion from the 2nd Division.

United Sikkim and Air India were relegated, although Air India would not have been given a licence to compete in this edition after failing to fulfill the AIFF criteria. This same fate happened to ONGC who have also been left out of the coming season.

Mumbai Tigers was accepted into the league on 27 May 2013 but later withdrew citing unavoidable circumstances with only 20 days left into the start of the new season.^[8][9]

Bengaluru was also accepted into the league and is based in Bangalore. One other consortium from Kerala, whose leading company is Eagles FC, also expressed interest in joining the league. It was also announced in late May that English club Queens Park Rangers also expressed interest but look to be prepared to enter for the 2014–15 season.^[10]

On 29 August 2013, the AIFF decided to shut down Pailan Arrows and withdraw them from the coming season.^[11] The league committee also announced in May 2013 to use a Conference Model, the Eastern Conference and Western Conference. The top-four from each Conference would advance to play the final round. But this was later dropped.^[12]

On 20 September 2013, it was announced that the largest cellular service provider in India, Airtel, will be the title sponsor of I-League for the 2013–14 season.^[13]

Venues and locations

Bengaluru

Goa

Kolkata

Mumbai

Pune

Shillong Lajong

Rangdajied United

Goan teams
Churchill Brothers
Dempo
Salgaocar
Sporting Goa

Kolkata teams
East Bengal
Mohammedan
Mohun Bagan
United

Locations of teams in the 2013–14 I-League

Team	Location	Stadium	Capacity
Bengaluru	Bangalore, Karnataka	Bangalore Football Stadium	8,400[14]
Churchill Brothers	Salcette, Goa	Fatorda Stadium	24,000
Dempo	Panjim, Goa	Fatorda Stadium	24,000
East Bengal	Kolkata, West Bengal	Kalyani Stadium	10,000
Mohammedan	Kolkata, West Bengal	Salt Lake Stadium	120,000
Mohun Bagan	Kolkata, West Bengal	Salt Lake Stadium	120,000
Mumbai	Mumbai, Maharashtra	Balewadi Sports Complex	22,000
Pune	Pune, Maharashtra	Balewadi Sports Complex	22,000
Rangdajied United	Shillong, Meghalaya	Nehru Stadium	30,000
Salgaocar	Vasco da Gama, Goa	Tilak Maidan Stadium	16,000
Shillong Lajong	Shillong, Meghalaya	Nehru Stadium	30,000
Sporting Goa	Panjim, Goa	Duler Stadium	6,000
United	Kolkata, West Bengal	Kalyani Stadium	10,000

Personnel and kits

Team	Manager	Captain	Shirt sponsor	Kit sponsor
Bengaluru	Ashley Westwood	Sunil Chhetri	JSW	none
Churchill Brothers	Mariano Dias	Lenny Rodrigues	Churchill	none
Dempo	Arthur Papas	Clifford Miranda	Dempo	Nike
East Bengal	Armando Colaco	Mehtab Hussain	Kingfisher and SRMB TMT1	Shiv-Naresh
Mohammedan	Sanjoy Sen	R Dhanarajan	EMTA Group2	none
Mohun Bagan	Karim Bencherifa	Odafe Okolie	McDowell's No.1	Fila
Mumbai	Khalid Jamil	Zohib Amiri	TEN HD	Seven
Pune	Mike Snoei	Anas Edathodika	Peninsula	Adidas
Rangdajied United	Herring Shangpliang	Poibang Pohshna	none	Diadora
Salgaocar	Derrick Pereira	Francis Fernandes	Salgaocar	none
Shillong Lajong	Thangboi Singto	Minchol Son	Aircel	Adidas
Sporting Goa	Óscar Bruzón	Matthew Gonsalves	Models	none
United	Ananta Kumar Ghosh	Deepak Mondal	T.H.P.L.	none

1. ^ On the back of shirt.

2. ^ On the sleeves.

Transfers

Further information: I-League transfers for the 2013–14 season

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Incoming manager	Date of appointment
Bengaluru	Expansion team			Pre-season	Ashley Westwood	2 July 2013[15]
Dempo	Armando Colaco	End of Contract	31 May 2013[16]		Arthur Papas	1 June 2013[17]
East Bengal	Trevor Morgan	Mutual Agreement	12 May 2013[18]		Marcos Falopa	12 June 2013[19]
Mohammedan	Sanjoy Sen	Resigned	10 May 2013[20]		Abdul Aziz Moshood	10 June 2013[21]
Pune	Derrick Pereira	End of Contract	12 May 2013[22]		Mike Snoei	12 May 2013[23]
Rangdajied United	None1				Santosh Kashyap	6 June 2013[24]
Salgaocar	Dave Booth	End of Contract	12 May 2013[25]		Derrick Pereira	12 May 2013[25]
East Bengal	Marcos Falopa	Resigned	13 November 2013[26]	10th (5 games in)	Armando Colaco	20 November 2013[26]
Mohammedan	Abdul Aziz Moshood	Sacked	17 December 2013[27]	11th (13 games in)	Sanjoy Sen	17 December 2013[27]
United	Eelco Schattorie	Resigned	27 January 2014[28]	9th (15 games in)	Ananta Kumar Ghosh	15 February 2014[29]
Rangdajied United	Santosh Kashyap	Sacked	21 February 2014[30]	13th	Herring Shangpliang	1 March 2014[31]

1. ^ Rangdajied United, during the 2013 I-League 2nd Division, were under the control of their General Secretary, Karsing Kurbah.^[32]

Foreign players

Restricting the number of foreign players strictly to four per team, including a slot for a player from AFC countries. A team could use four foreign players on the field during each game including at least one player from the AFC country.

Club	Player 1	Player 2	Player 3	AFC Player	Former Players1
Bengaluru	John Johnson	Curtis Osano	Johnny Menyongar	Sean Rooney
Churchill Brothers	Cristian Lagos	Abdelhamid Shabana	Anthony Wolfe	Daniell Zeleny	Henri Antchouet Amoreirinha Hugo Machado Ahmad Al Kaddour Naser Al Sebai Yasser Shahen
Dempo	Simon Colosimo	Tolgay Ozbey	Beto	Zohib Islam Amiri	Billy Mehmet Shinnosuke Honda
East Bengal	Chidi Edeh	Uga Okpara	James Moga	Ryuji Sueoka
Mohammedan	Josimar	Luciano Sabrosa	Penn Orji	Taro Hasegawa[33]	Tolgay Ozbey
Mohun Bagan	Echezona Anyichie	Christopher Chizoba	Odafe Okolie	Katsumi Yusa	Harrison Muranda
Mumbai	Yusif Yakubu	Henry Ezeh	Ebi Sukore	Ahmad Hatifi	Sandjar Ahmadi Zohib Islam Amiri
Pune	Calum Angus	Pierre Douhou	Riga Mustapha	Mirjan Pavlović	James Meyer Raul Fabiani
Rangdajied United	Ranti Martins[34]	Kim Song-Yong	Lamine Tamba	Yohei Iwasaki	Edmar Figueira
Salgaocar	Dudu Omagbemi	Chika Wali	Darryl Duffy	Matthew Foschini	Claude Gnakpa
Shillong Lajong	Uilliams	Taisuke Matsugae	Cornell Glen	Minchol Son
Sporting Goa	Martins Ekwueme	Ogba Kalu Nnanna	Gonzalo Hinojal	Boima Karpeh	Arturo Navarro
United	Eric Brown	Waheed Adekunle[34]	Bello Razaq	Hasan Al Moustafa	Ranti Martins

• ^1 Foreign players who left their clubs midway or after first half of the season.

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Bengaluru (C)	24	14	5	5	42	28	+14	47	Qualification for 2015 AFC Champions League qualifying play-off
2	East Bengal	24	12	7	5	39	23	+16	43	Qualification for 2015 AFC Cup group stage
3	Salgaocar	24	11	6	7	36	25	+11	39
4	Dempo	24	9	8	7	31	25	+6	35
5	Sporting Goa	24	9	7	8	34	34	0	34
6	Shillong Lajong	24	8	9	7	35	37	−2	33
7	Pune	24	7	8	9	28	32	−4	29
8	Mohun Bagan	24	6	10	8	23	24	−1	28
9	Mumbai	24	5	13	6	31	32	−1	28
10	United (R)	24	5	11	8	22	32	−10	26	Excluded[a]
11	Rangdajied United (R)	24	6	7	11	29	38	−9	25
12	Churchill Brothers (R)	24	6	7	11	25	37	−12	25
13	Mohammedan (R)	24	6	6	12	27	35	−8	24	Relegation to 2015 I-League 2nd Division

Source: IndiaFooty.com
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) head-to-head points; 3) goal difference; 4) number of goals scored; 5) taking lots^[36]
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated
Notes:

1. United, Rangdajied United and Churchill Brothers were barred from I-League they failed to meet Asian Football Confederation's licensing criteria.^[35]

Results

Home \ Away	BFC	CB	DEM	EB	MSC	MB	MUM	PFC	RUFC	SFC	SLFC	SCG	USC
Bengaluru		3–0	3–1	0–2	2–1	1–1	1–1	1–1	3–0	2–1	2–1	0–0	1–0
Churchill Brothers	1–3		1–4	1–0	3–1	0–0	0–2	3–2	1–0	0–1	0–1	3–2	0–2
Dempo	2–4	1–0		1–0	1–0	0–0	1–1	1–1	2–0	0–2	0–3	4–0	1–2
East Bengal	2–0	0–0	1–3		2–1	1–1	2–2	3–1	3–1	2–3	0–0	2–1	1–1
Mohammedan	2–3	0–0	0–0	1–3		0–0	1–0	1–3	2–1	0–1	4–5	3–1	0–0
Mohun Bagan	0–2	2–2	0–1	0–1	0–0		1–1	3–1	0–2	2–1	2–1	1–2	4–0
Mumbai	2–2	4–2	1–1	3–2	1–2	0–1		0–0	1–1	1–3	2–3	1–1	1–1
Pune	1–0	1–0	0–3	1–2	2–0	2–0	1–2		1–0	1–2	2–2	1–1	1–1
Rangdajied United	3–2	1–1	2–2	1–2	0–3	3–1	1–1	3–2		2–2	0–0	1–2	4–0
Salgaocar	1–2	1–2	1–1	0–0	3–0	1–0	2–0	1–1	1–2		3–1	0–1	0–0
Shillong Lajong	3–0	2–2	2–1	0–4	2–1	1–1	1–2	0–0	1–1	2–1		0–1	1–1
Sporting Goa	1–2	1–1	1–0	1–1	1–3	1–3	1–1	2–0	3–0	3–3	5–1		1–0
United	1–3	3–2	0–0	0–3	1–1	0–0	1–1	1–2	2–0	0–2	2–2	3–1

Source: Results
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Season statistics

As of 28 April 2014^[37]

Top scorers Rank Player Team Goals 1 Sunil Chhetri Bengaluru 14 Darryl Duffy Salgaocar Cornell Glen Shillong Lajong 4 Josimar Mohammedan 13 5 Ranti Martins Rangdajied United 12 6 Boima Karpeh Sporting Goa 11 7 Eric Brown United 10 Sean Rooney Bengaluru Balwant Singh Churchill Brothers

Top Indian Scorers Rank Player Team Goals 1 Sunil Chhetri Bengaluru 14 2 Balwant Singh Churchill Brothers 10 3 Gilbert Oliveira Salgaocar 6 4 Boithang Haokip Shillong Lajong 5 T Lalnunpuia Rangdajied United Jeje Lalpekhlua Dempo Robin Singh Bengaluru

Hat-tricks

Player	Club	Against	Result	Date
Kalu Ogba	Sporting Goa	Shillong Lajong	5—1	14 December 2013
Tolgay Özbey 4	Dempo	Churchill Brothers	4—1	28 March 2014
Yusif Yakubu	Mumbai	Churchill Brothers	4—2	13 April 2014
Cornell Glen	Shillong Lajong	Mohammedan	5—4	16 April 2014

⁴ Player scored 4 goals

Disciplinary

• Most red cards (2)
  • Echezona Anyichie (Mohun Bagan)
  • Amrinder Singh (Pune)
• Most yellow cards (7)
  • Eric Brown (United SC)
  • Yohei Iwasaki (Rangdajied United)
  • Luciano Sabrosa (Mohammedan)
  • Lamine Tamba (Rangdajied United)
• Worst disciplinary record (2 red cards & 5 yellow cards)
  • Echezona Anyichie (Mohun Bagan)

Fair play

The Fair Play qualities of the participating teams and which are pertinent to the spectators will be evaluated using the FIFA Fair Play evaluation form.^[38] Salgaocar led the Fair Play rankings at the end of the season.^[39]

Rank	Team	Games	Total Points
1	Salgaocar	24	1904.643
2	United	24	1850.357
3	Rangdajied United	24	1841.429
4	Mumbai	24	1839.286
5	Dempo	24	1824.286
6	Bengaluru	24	1816.571
7	East Bengal	24	1813.514
8	Shillong Lajong	24	1797.143
9	Mohun Bagan	24	1788.214
10	Pune	24	1760.357
11	Mohammedan	24	1744.286
12	Sporting Goa	24	1719.286
13	Churchill Brothers	24	1672.071

Average attendance

Average attendance at the various clubs were as follows:^[2][3]

Rank	Team	Average attendance
1	Mohun Bagan	17,068
2	Shillong Lajong	11,308
3	East Bengal	8,667
4	Rangdajied United	7,687
5	Mohammedan	7,083
6	Bengaluru	7,038
7	Pune	2,586
8	Dempo	2,542
9	Churchill Brothers	2,450
10	Salgaocar	2,421
11	United	2,250
12	Sporting Goa	1,608
13	Mumbai	321
	League Average	5618

Awards

AIFF Awards

All India Football Federation awarded the following awards for the I-League season, voted by all the captains and the coaches of all the participating clubs.^[40]

• Best player of I-League: Sunil Chhetri (Bengaluru)
• Best goalkeeper of I-League: Karanjit Singh (Salgaocar)
• Best defender of I-League: John Johnson (Bengaluru)
• Best midfielder of I-League: Douhou Pierre (Pune)
• Best forward of I-League: Sunil Chhetri (Bengaluru)
• Best referee of I-League: Pratap Singh
• Best assistant referee of I-League: Sapan Kennedy

FPAI Awards

Football Player's Association of India awarded the following award for the season^[41]

• Indian player of the year : Balwant Singh
• Coach of the season : Ashley Westwood
• Young player of the season : Alwyn George
• Foreign player of the season : Daryl Duffy
• Fans player of the season : Boithang Haokip

Number of teams by state

State	No. of teams	Teams	City
West Bengal	4	East Bengal	Kolkata
		Mohammedan
		Mohun Bagan
		United
Goa	4	Dempo	Panaji
		Sporting Goa
		Churchill Brothers	Salcette
		Salgaocar	Vasco da Gama
Meghalaya	2	Rangdajied United	Shillong
		Shillong Lajong
Maharashtra	2	Mumbai	Mumbai
		Pune	Pune
Karnataka	1	Bengaluru	Bangalore