The Premier League opened a new office in Mumbai on April 29, bringing it closer to one of the markets it has had a longstanding history in promoting football participation.
The new office will serve as the official Indian headquarters of the Premier League where it will continue to engage local fans and partners to promote football across the country, as well as supporting the growth of the league and its clubs.
The English top-flight league will continue to work alongside Indian football leagues and authorities, including the Indian Super League (ISL), to promote football participation at the grassroots level with its Premier Skill programme.
The initiative, in partnership with the British Council, has been promoting participation amongst Indian youths since 2007. The Premier Skill programme has been active in 18 Indian states, involved more than 7,300 coaches and referees and supported more than 1240,000 young people.
Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Masters, said: “We and our clubs have a fantastic and knowledgeable fanbase in India, and we know football continues to grow in popularity.
“We are proud of our longstanding commitment to India, having worked to deliver community football programmes for 18 years and, more recently, our partnership with the Indian Super League.”
The new office will also serve as a base for closer communications with the ISL to continue to share knowledge on how to grow the Indian football league by leveraging the Premier League’s 30-plus year history.
The Premier League has said it will look to use the Mumbai office to collaborate further with its Indian national broadcaster, JioStar, exploring new events and partnership opportunities.
“Opening this office marks a significant milestone for the Premier League,” added Masters.
“It will allow us to operate more effectively locally as we build on our existing work to establish more ways to strengthen our relationship with fans, JioStar and other partners. We are looking forward to the opportunities it will create in the region.”
The Premier League’s presence in Mumbai is the latest in the organisation’s growth plans.
In 2019, the league opened its first international office in Singapore as a hub to fight piracy and illegal broadcasts of its fixtures and support its global broadcast partners.
This Singapore office was followed by a New York office in July 2023. With the Premier League, and football overall, surging in popularity amongst Americans, the league stated this marked new opportunities in the US to further grow the Premier League brand and work closely with US broadcast partner NBC Sports.
The most recent international office opening prior to the Mumbai office was in Beijing, where it will work with regional partners and fans to develop football participation across China.
