NEW DELHI(AP) Organizers of India's new six-team football league say the inaugural tournament is being postponed as they work through tricky logistics for the first time.
The first match had been scheduled for March 24, but Indian Football Association secretary Utpal Ganguli says organizers are still working to set up systems and secure the six venues in West Bengal state.
He says a new start date will be announced soon, and that ''one wants to be sure of all the logistics since this is the first tournament being held of this magnitude.''
"Discussion is on with the state government but even if it is sorted out by the end of this week, we would need time to prepare the fields," Dharamdutt Pandey, CEO of the event management company CMG which conceived PLS, told Reuters by telephone.
"These are minor issues and PLS is very much on. We are now targetting a mid-April start for the league."
"It would require at least one month to upgrade the stadiums to an international standard. So we are now looking at mid-April," Pandey added.
India is hoping the new league - stacked with semiretired world pros like Robert Pires and Fabio Cannavaro - will boost football's popularity in the cricket-crazy country and attract fans who now follow European clubs.