Indian Super League: India's biggest football event kicks off with a glittering ceremony

The inaugural season of the Indian Super League got off to a grand opening on Sunday at Kolkata's Salt Lake Stadium with a blend of music, dance, entertainment, Bollywood and cricket.

It was an evening to remember for the people of Kolkata as the much awaited Indian Super League did everything possible to create the buzz in the 'City of Joy'. Hoards of People were seen flocking the stadium since noon with Atletico de Kolkata flags.

The ceremony began with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, ISL founding chairperson Nita Ambani, AIFF president Praful Patel and Atletico de Kolkata co-owner Sanjiv Goenka together on the podium.

"Thank you so much for choosing Kolkata for the opening ceremony. Lets' love football, eat football, think football, sleep football and drink football," the chief minister said.

Terming it as a dream come true, Praful Patel said: "This is a dream come true. It's a great opportunity for us to take this game to every corner of the city. Special thanks to Nita Ambani and IMG-Reliance. I will assure that we will not leave any stone unturned to make this ISL a super success."

The celebrations began with a musical tribute by the 8 musical maestros to the eight city-based franchises. The ceremony also saw a colourful performance by 200 children, wherein over 600 illuminated footballs were used as props to culminate the Indian Super League logo.

Bollywood's desi girl Priyanka Chopra was the highlight of the show along with musical duo of Salim and Suleiman. Priyanka made a grand entry to the Bollywood chartbusters 'Tune Mari Entriyaan', 'Ram Leela' before welcoming the crowd in Bengali style - "Kemon achen Kolkata!'

Starting with Atletico de Kolkata, Priyanka called the team owners one by one onto the podium and took a pun at Sourav Ganguly, saying: "Dada chose to own a football team because he can remove jersey whenever he wants..."

They were followed by Parineeti Chopra and Italian World Cup winner Alessandro Del Piero for the Delhi Dynamos.

John Abraham came along with New Zealand marquee manager Ricki Hebert for NorthEast United FC, Dattaraj Salgaocar and Robert Pires (Goa), Abhishek Bachchan and marquee player Elano Blumer (Chennai), Hrithik Roshan and French World Cup winner David Trezeguet (Pune), Ranbir Kapoor and Fedrik Ljungberg (Mumbai) and Sachin Tendulkar and David James (Kerala) were called one by one by star performer Priyanka.

With chants of 'Sachiiiiin, Sachiiiiin' booming in the grand stadium, crowd gave a standing ovation to the retired Indian batting legend.

Touching the hearts of the football-loving crowd, Nita Ambani formally declared the ISL open in Bengali. "Ami Indian Super League er Subho Suchona Korchi (I declare the auspicious opening of ISL) - I formally declare the Indian Super League open," she said.

An amazing display of fireworks then lit up the sky in a full capacity Salt Lake Stadium to conclude the gala ceremony.