As the Indian Super League heads into its first season under a club-led model, Bengaluru FC's Director of Football Darren Caldeira has laid out where he thinks Indian football needs to go, and it isn't through a rush of Overseas Citizenship of India signings.
Speaking to TimesofIndia.com, Caldeira called the shift away from a centrally run league "a positive step," pointing out that clubs elsewhere in the world already operate this way. But he was careful not to oversell the transition. "There are still a lot of formalities that need to be closed," he said, while adding that conversations around sponsorship and production give him confidence things are moving in the right direction, with a central team already being onboarded and some soft integrations under way.
Commercial Risk Now Sits With The Clubs
The biggest structural change, according to Caldeira, is that clubs now carry the commercial risk that previously sat with Football Sports Development Limited. "Previously, it was FSDL speaking with production houses and broadcasters," he explained, describing how clubs once knew their franchise fee and expected central revenue in advance. Now there's uncertainty over what the numbers and profit-and-loss figures will actually look like, even with tentative projections in place. He said owners are being cautious but also excited about the chance to control costs and take a hand in marketing the league themselves.
Why Bengaluru Went Foreign Instead Of Domestic
Bengaluru FC haven't signed a single domestic player this season, a decision Caldeira put down to the strength of the club's academy pipeline, which produced first-team debutants last season and is expected to fill gaps left by four or five departing players, some of them squad leaders. Instead, the recruitment focus shifted toward foreign signings. Bengaluru fielded only two overseas players last season and missed out on the ISL Shield by three points, which Caldeira suggested might have gone differently with a couple more foreign additions. He credited head coach Pep Muñoz for working closely with him to identify profiles that would strengthen the squad's push for the title.
On the academy more broadly, Caldeira said more than half of Bengaluru's first team has come through the club's youth system, sparing them from chasing free agents when other clubs scramble to fill gaps. "If you're good enough, you're old enough," he said, echoing what he described as Muñoz's philosophy that neither age nor nationality should be a barrier for academy graduates stepping into first-team football.
Backing Salary Caps, Wary Of Loopholes
Asked whether the ISL should introduce salary caps, Caldeira answered without hesitation: "100 percent." He said clubs have already begun internal conversations about agreeing on a shared number and sticking to it, acknowledging that salary caps have existed in past seasons with varying degrees of compliance. The challenge, he said, is building an enforcement system in a league where, unlike MLS, contracts aren't centralised and each club manages its own. "It's not the MLS, where contracts are centralised and the league controls the contracts," he said, though he views the fact that clubs are engaging with the issue at all as encouraging.
The Case Against Rushing OCI Signings
On Overseas Citizenship of India players, Caldeira described a wave of agents and players reaching out when the idea first gained traction, but questioned whether it had been properly thought through. He wondered aloud whether such players would genuinely commit to spending two or three years in Indian football, handling paperwork and potentially surrendering another passport for the right reasons rather than social media attention.
He also pushed back on the assumption that foreign or OCI players are automatically superior to homegrown talent. "There are also a lot of players who are playing in Europe, but I wouldn't say are better than our Indian boys right now," he said, arguing that any move in this direction would need a tightly curated shortlist of genuinely elite players rather than a broad opening of the door. Ultimately, he sees OCI recruitment as "temporary" and "a quick fix," insisting the real priority has to remain grassroots development and youth academies.
What Success Looks Like
For the league itself, Caldeira wants a return to a full home-and-away format with playoffs restored, rather than the truncated structure of recent seasons, along with more time to finalise broadcaster, sponsor and kit partnerships. At club level, he wants a first full season for Muñoz to bear fruit and Bengaluru's academy and soccer school to keep producing, all while moving the club toward what he called a sustainable financial model. He also linked the health of the league to the fortunes of the national team, noting upcoming friendlies against Panama, Brazil and Uruguay as matches that could shape wider perceptions of Indian football. "Good performances at the international level do help us because there are a lot of eyeballs," he said.
