[1] In March 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ISL abruptly cancelled its fourth season and all competition in 2022.

[5] After clarifying the interpretation of a rule included in section 4.5 of FINA general rules,[6] FINA stated that the Energy for Swim meet was now classified as an international event for that season, given that "a competition which is conceptually designed to have a majority of foreign participants is not a national competition", and thus it needed to be approved within the ordinary six-month window.

[7] Since the approval window was already expired, the athletes participating in that meet would have been disqualified from one to two years by FINA and any world records set during the event would not have been recognized.

[8] Despite negotiations failure between FINA, ISL and Energy Standard Group – that would have organized Energy for Swim meet along with FIN – several athletes sustained the new idea of a team-based swimming competition (among which Katinka Hosszú and Adam Peaty).

[10] Meanwhile, ISL also presented a newly formed representation company – ISL USA – which would have staged the semi-finals and Final Match, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, and assisted the new US clubs in their operations (including scouting talent, signing athletes and running their own swimming meets).

[11] A crucial step towards the creation of ISL was made when FINA announced that athletes taking part in Non-FINA sanctioned events would not have been banned and that similar competitions would be allowed, also confirming that all the world records set in the first two stages would not have been considered (because of clashing with World Cup events).

[12][13] In June 2019, ISL released the schedule of the league inaugural season, which officially started on the first week of the following October.

[20][21] With the vast majority of the ISL's $20 million annual funding coming from Ukrainian billionaire and businessman Konstantin Grigorishin, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused the league to struggle even further in its finances.

On 28 February, just days after the Russian invasion began, the ISL failed to pay its athletes due to being unable to remove funds from within Ukraine.

On 27 March 2022, the ISL released a statement with the decision to cancel its 4th season of 2022, slated to start in July with a planned 24 competitions and $13 million prize pool for athletes.

The statement makes no mention of funding, though explicitly states support for the Ukrainian effort.

After all of the championship matches, the 4 clubs with the highest number of points advance to the final, where the winner of the league (the ISL Champions) are determined.

Similarly, the rest of the clubs are distributed through 2nd to 4th place, respective of the points they score during the entire match.

and take place on two days, with two two-hour long sessions including two short breaks in each.

In 2019, the two American and European teams with the highest number of points after the regular championship, qualify for the Final.

On the table all of the minimum time standards (SCM) for the events are compared to the world records.

A Most Valuable Player (MVP) is determined after each match and at the end of the entire ISL season.

ISL skin races score as follows:[28] The 2019 season budget was US$20m, with over US$6m of this being appearance and prize money for the athletes.