kolkata the ileague began with many of the experienced faces like subrata paul gouramangi singh sanju pradhan nirmal chhetri ishfaq ahmed mehrajuddin wadoo manish maithani and others missing in action they have entered into a contract with the imgr to play in the franchiseebased league next year and owing to a few reservations the ileague clubs had decided not to employ them however on monday mohammedan sporting broke the club solidarity and decided to rope in five players nabi maithani luis barreto ishfaq and mehraj the last two are expected to sign on wednesday on loan from imgr the players are happy to be back playing in the ileague for a footballer the happiest thing is to be able to play competitively we have been playing in the ileague for so long and it was a bit sad that we were not part of it these past few weeks said nabi on wednesday it is great to return to playing in the ileague again and i thank mohammedan sporting officials for this former dempo sc mohun bagan and east bengal player ishfaq echoed nabis views i signed with imgr because i feel that the new league will be a huge boost for indian football he said adding i also want to play in the ileague i have been playing for 10 years without a break by not being able to play in ileague this season till now i felt cut off from indian football and it was hurting for sure it feels fantastic to be back again maithani has not been on the ileague circuit as long as nabi or ishfaq but then five years is no less time img has taken great care of us and we also had a great camp and played a few practice matches but i am definitely happy to be playing in the ileague i am also looking forward to be part of the new league he said apart from mohammedan sporting mohun bagan have also decided to take youngsters pritam kotal and shouvik ghosh of the nowdisbanded arrows on loan few other arrows players are on the radar these players have a contract with the all india football federation but ileague clubs were also reluctant to take the arrows players as they also had to be released for the imgr league but that meant these promising players who had done so well under arthur papas last season were also missing from being in the ileague mix