2025 IFA Shield

The 2025 IFA Shield is the 125th edition of the IFA Shield hosted by the Indian Football Association. The tournament was planned to held in March 2025 but was pushed to October due to clash of fixtures from I-League and Indian Super League.

2025 IFA Shield

২০২৫ আইএফএ শিল্ড
Tournament details
Country	India
Dates	8–18 October
Teams	6
Defending champions	Real Kashmir
Final positions
Champions	Mohun Bagan (21st title)
Runners-up	East Bengal
Tournament statistics
Matches played	7
Goals scored	20 (2.86 per match)
Attendance	65,880 (9,411 per match)
Top goal scorer(s)	Jamie Maclaren Hamid Ahadad (2 goals)
← 2021 2026 →

The tournament will feature domestic teams from the Indian Super League and I-League. At first, international invitees like Paro FC (Bhutan) were invited but later the plan was withdrawn.^[1][2][3]

Defending champions Real Kashmir were also invited to take part, but they denied. On 3 October, 6 participants were confirmed by IFA.

Teams

Here is the list of confirmed teams:^[4][5]

Kolkata

Kolkata teams:
East Bengal
Mohun Bagan
United SC

Gokulam Kerala

Namdhari

Sreenidi Deccan

Locations of 2025 IFA Shield clubs

Club	Location
Indian Super League teams
East Bengal	Kolkata, West Bengal
Mohun Bagan
I-League teams
Gokulam Kerala	Kozhikode, Kerala
Namdhari	Sri Bhaini Sahib, Punjab
Sreenidi Deccan	Hyderabad, Telangana
I-League 2 team
United SC	Kalyani, West Bengal

Venues

• Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, Salt Lake City
• Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Santoshpur
• Kalyani Stadium, Kalyani

Format

6 teams will be divided into two groups of 3 teams. After a group stage consisting of single round-robin matches, top teams from each group will qualify for final.^[5]

Rules

• Each team can register 6 foreign players.^[4]
• 4 foreign players can play on the field at a time, and 2 can be used as substitutes.

Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.

1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
4. If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
5. Goal difference in all group matches;
6. Goals scored in all group matches;
7. Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
8. Drawing of lots.

Group stage

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		EAB	NAM	SDC
1	East Bengal	2	2	0	0	6	0	+6	6	Advance to the Final			2–0	4–0
2	Namdhari	2	1	0	1	3	2	+1	3					3–0
3	Sreenidi Deccan	2	0	0	2	0	7	−7	0

Source: IFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers

8 October 2025

15:00 IST

East Bengal	4–0	Sreenidi Deccan
Gupta 21' Crespo 38' Ahadad 48' Thounaojam 51'	AIFF I-League PDF Report

Kalyani Stadium, Kalyani

Attendance: 8,000

Referee: Dipu Roy
Man of the Match: Saúl Crespo (East Bengal)

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11 October 2025

14:30 IST

Sreenidi Deccan	0–3	Namdhari
	AIFF I-League PDF Report	Moro 9' Gomes 11' B. Singh 39'

Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata^[a]

Attendance: 150

Referee: Tanumoy Sarkar
Man of the Match: Moro Lamine (Namdhari)

1. At first the venue was announced as Kalyani Stadium, but IFA later changed it to Kishore Bharati Krirangan.^[6]

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14 October 2025

14:30 IST

Namdhari	0–2	East Bengal
	AIFF I-League PDF Report	Rashid 19' PV Vishnu 41'

Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata

Attendance: 2,659

Referee: Rohan Das Gupta
Man of the Match: Mohammed Rashid (East Bengal)

Group B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		MBG	USC	GOK
1	Mohun Bagan	2	2	0	0	7	1	+6	6	Advance to the Final			2–0	5–1
2	United SC	2	1	0	1	1	2	−1	3					1–0
3	Gokulam Kerala	2	0	0	2	1	6	−5	0

Source: IFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers

9 October 2025

15:00 IST

Gokulam Kerala	1–5	Mohun Bagan
Apuia 48' (o.g.)	AIFF I-League PDF Report	Rishad 11' (o.g.) Maclaren 27', 75' Rodríguez 51' Robson 54'

Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata

Attendance: 1,400

Referee: Surojit Das
Man of the Match: Jamie Maclaren (Mohun Bagan)

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12 October 2025

14:30 IST

United SC	1–0	Gokulam Kerala
Amit Basak 54'	AIFF I-League PDF Report

Kalyani Stadium, Kalyani

Attendance: 768

Referee: Pratik Mondal
Man of the Match: Amit Basak (United SC)

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15 October 2025

14:30 IST

Mohun Bagan	2–0	United SC
Petratos 45' Cummings 49'	AIFF I-League PDF Report

Kishore Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata

Attendance: 2,667

Referee: Mithun Kumar Kundu
Man of the Match: Robson (Mohun Bagan)

Final

The group toppers will qualify for the final directly. The match is going to be held on 18 October 2025 at Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan.

Match

18 October 2025

18:00 IST

Mohun Bagan	1–1 (a.e.t.)	East Bengal
Cummings 34' Apuia 45+3'	AIFF I-League PDF Report	Hamid 36'
Penalties
Robson Manvir Liston Petratos Mehtab	5–4	Miguel Sibille Mahesh Jay Ibusuki

Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata

Attendance: 50,236

Referee: Venkatesh Ramachadran
Man of the Match: Naorem Mahesh (East Bengal)

Mohun Bagan

East Bengal

GK 1 Vishal Kaith DF 15 Subhasish Bose DF 5 Tom Aldred DF 55 Mehtab Singh MF 17 Liston Colaco DF 21 Alberto Rodríguez MF 45 Apuia MF 11 Manvir Singh MF 6 Anirudh Thapa FW 35 Jason Cummings FW 29 Jamie Maclaren Substitutes: DF 27 Abhishek Singh DF 32 Dippendu Biswas DF 44 Asish Rai MF 10 Robson Robinho MF 22 Deepak Tangri MF 9 Dimitri Petratos MF 11 Manvir Singh GK 24 Zahid Hussain MF 16 Abhishek Suryavanshi FW 72 Suhail Bhat Head coach: Jose Francisco Molina

GK 13 Prabhsukhan Gill DF 5 Lalchungnunga DF 4 Anwar Ali DF 12 Mohammad Rakip DF 6 Kevin Sibille MF 74 Mohammed Rashid MF 21 Saúl Crespo FW 15 Naorem Mahesh FW 17 Hamid Ahadad FW 29 Bipin Singh FW 10 Edmund Lalrindika Substitutes: GK 24 Debjit Majumder MF 23 Souvik Chakrabarti MF 25 Jeakson Singh DF 16 Martand Raina MF 8 Miguel Figueira FW 9 Hiroshi Ibusuki FW 82 PV Vishnu FW 14 Lalhlansanga DF 27 Jay Gupta FW 84 Sayan Banerjee Head coach: Oscar Bruzon

Player of the Match Naorem Mahesh (East Bengal)

Match rules 90 minutes. 30 minutes of extra time if necessary. Penalty shoot-out if scores still level. Ten named substitutes. Maximum of five substitutions.

Statistics

Goalscorers

As of 18 October 2025

Rank	Player	Club	Goals
1	Hamid Ahadad	East Bengal	2
	Jamie Maclaren	Mohun Bagan
2	Jay Gupta	East Bengal	1
	Jeakson Singh
	Mohammed Rashid
	PV Vishnu
	Saúl Crespo
	Alberto Rodríguez	Mohun Bagan
	Apuia
	Dimi Petratos
	Jason Cummings
	Robson Robinho
	Bhupinder Singh	Namdhari
	Guilherme Gomes
	Lamine Moro
	Amit Basak	United SC
Own Goal(s)			2
Total			18

Clean sheets

As of 18 October 2025

Rank	Player	Club	Clean Sheets
1	Debjit Majumder	East Bengal	1
	Niraj Kumar Singh	Namdhari
	Prabhsukhan Singh Gill	East Bengal
	Suraj Ali	United SC
	Syed Zahid Hussain	Mohun Bagan

Prize money

Place	Prize Money (₹)
Champions	₹5 lakh
Runners-up	₹3 lakh

Broadcasting

All matches were broadcast on a virtual platform of Shrachi Sports Entertainment Network (SSEN) app.^[7] No television broadcasting was done.

See also

• 2025 CFL Premier Division
• 2025 Bengal Super League
• 2025–26 AIFF Super Cup

Notes