02 June,2020 09:22 AM IST | Mumbai | Shunashir Sen
It's that time of the year when football leagues across the world reach their business end. The top teams battle it out for the champion's trophy and the bottom few fight tooth and nail to survive. But that equation has, of course, gone haywire this year. Most leagues have been indefinitely stalled while the few that have been restarted - like the German Bundesliga - have matches being played in empty stadiums, which make for surreal viewing. Fans have their hands tied, but the good news is that they can recreate the feel of being part of a football league in the virtual world, thanks to an online FIFA league that is being organised in India for the very first time.
Shreyas Sanghvi, cofounder of Es Magico Sports that is hosting the event along with Connectin eSports, tells us that the matches will also be live-streamed on YouTube. The tournament is called Pro League India and Sanghvi says, "We basically launched it as a platform to give gamers an organised format. There are a lot of standalone tournaments that take place, but we wanted to give people a season-long format so that they can prove their mettle against the best in the country."
He adds that the first season is already underway, but qualifier positions are still up for grabs. The idea is to have the top 20 players in the country battle it out for supremacy, though Sanghvi says that the number might be reduced to 12, depending on the logistics. An interested participant has to sign up for the league and the top four players will later play the final rounds in July and August. That's usually when the new season of actual football leagues also starts on the ground, though things are still up in the air as far as this year is concerned. Will the whistle blow two months down the line? We will have to wait to find out about that one.
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