Football has been a passion of thousands of Malayalees for the last several decades—much before the state of Kerala was formed on 1 November 1956. Kerala Football Association was formed in 1948 to directly oversees the development of football in Kerala from grassroots to senior level. Later the headquarters of KFA was moved to
Kollam after P. Laxmanan Pillai was elected president and K. Thankappan honorary secretary. KFA saw a new breed of organizers taking over the reins in the 1970s with former mayor of
Cochin A. K. Seshadri becoming its president.
2021 privatization On 9 October 2021, Kerala Football Association signed a twelve year long deal with Meeran Sports LLP and Scoreline Sports Pvt Ltd. The deal was inspired from masterplan prepared by
Rob Baan, former technical director of AIFF. The consortium is responsible for getting investments worth around Rs 350 crore into the football ecosystem over the 12-year period. As per the agreement, consortium will form Kerala Super League, initially planned to further develop youth local players in senior transition. ==State teams==