‘Real Kashmir Football Club’: How a 2019 news story became an International Emmy nominee

Highlights:

• Real Kashmir Football Club has been nominated for Drama Series at the 2026 International Emmy Awards
• The SonyLIV drama is inspired by the true story of Jammu and Kashmir’s first professional football club
• The series follows two men who set out to build a football team and create opportunities for young people in the Valley

A football club born from a real story in Kashmir has now made its way to the International Emmys.

SonyLIV’s Real Kashmir Football Club has been nominated in the Drama Series category at the 2026 International Emmy Awards. The series is competing against the UK’s A Thousand Blows, France’s Carême and Argentina’s Menem.

Directed by Mahesh Mathai and Rajesh Mapuskar, the eight-part Hindi series premiered on SonyLIV on December 9, 2025. It stars Manav Kaul and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub in the lead roles.

But behind the Emmy-nominated drama is a real football story that began years before the series reached streaming audiences.

How did Real Kashmir Football Club begin?

The real-life story traces back to the aftermath of the devastating floods that hit Kashmir in 2014.

Businessman Sandeep Chattoo and journalist Shamim Meraj came together after seeing the impact of the floods on communities in the Valley. They began by distributing footballs to local children, an effort that eventually helped lead to the formation of Real Kashmir FC in 2016.

The club went on to make history by becoming the first professional football club from Jammu and Kashmir to play in India's top-tier I-League.

That journey became the foundation for the SonyLIV series.

What is Real Kashmir Football Club about?

The series follows two men who decide to build a professional football team in Kashmir.

Manav Kaul plays Shishir, while Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub plays Sohail. Together, their characters attempt to recruit players, find funding and keep the club alive despite the challenges around them.

Football, however, is only one part of the story.

The series also focuses on the young players who see the sport as an opportunity to build a different future. The team brings together 20 players, each dealing with their own circumstances, while the founders try to turn an ambitious idea into a functioning professional club.

SonyLIV describes the series as the story of “two dreamers and twenty underdogs” who attempt to build one of India's unlikely professional football clubs.

Why is the International Emmy nomination significant?

The nomination gives a wider international audience a chance to discover a story rooted in Kashmir and Indian football.

Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub said the project was an important story for the team to tell and dedicated the recognition to the people of Kashmir. He also expressed hope that the nomination would help the series reach a wider audience.

For showrunner and co-director Mahesh Mathai, the recognition marks the culmination of a long journey from discovering the story to bringing it to screen. Mathai said the team was honoured that the series had received global recognition through the Emmy nomination.

The 54th International Emmy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place in New York on November 23, 2026.

For Real Kashmir Football Club, the nomination has taken a story that began with a football club in the Valley onto an international stage.