Jamshedpur FC were five teams who could win the ISL title going into the final day of the season. A week later, they don't exist anymore.
Head coach Owen Coyle found out while driving to London to watch a match. His phone rang. He couldn't take it. When he called back, he learned the club he'd signed a two-year deal with just months earlier was being disbanded — a first in ISL history since the league launched in 2014.
"I didn't see this coming," Coyle told HT from his home in Ribble Valley, Lancashire. "But in football, the one thing you never lose is hope."
What Jamshedpur Were Building
This wasn't a club coasting through mid-table. Jamshedpur beat champions East Bengal this season and finished fifth with six wins — one fewer than the top three. They had the infrastructure other ISL clubs envied: their own training pitch, not a rented ground with scheduled slots. That's part of why Coyle came back for a second stint, having won the ISL league shield with them in 2021-22, a title that earned the club a spot in Asian competition.
His second project was quietly compelling. Keep the core Khalid Jamil built. Add imports Mehdi Talal and Messi Bouli. Stay in the fight. It worked right up until it didn't matter anymore.
The decision came from shareholders concluding that participation in the ISL is no longer financially viable. The club told AIFF as much. They'll keep investing in grassroots football and are still playing in the Durand Cup — but the first team is gone.
The Wider Fallout
The football community's reaction has been sharp. Sunil Chhetri and Sandesh Jhingan have publicly asked the Tata Group to reconsider. Rahul Bheke, Nikhil Poojary, and Bengaluru FC owner Parth Jindal voiced disappointment. Supporters marched in Jamshedpur on Monday. The players themselves have appealed for a rethink.
"The support Jamshedpur FC received from the football fraternity shows the esteem in which it is held," said Coyle. "Right now, my thoughts are with everyone at the club and the fans."
The backdrop to all of this is an ISL that has spent 2025 in genuine institutional chaos — a season that only got off the ground on February 14 after the Supreme Court approved the AIFF's new constitution in September 2024, by which point the league's commercial partners had already walked. No replacement was found. Jamshedpur FC and CEO Mukul Choudhari were among those who backed AIFF's push to start the season anyway. They paid for that loyalty with their survival.
Any club considering ISL investment is now watching very closely. If a Tata-backed outfit with its own facilities and a title-contending squad can fold mid-contract, the league's stability questions just got a lot harder to dismiss.
