ISL auction: Chhetri leads with Rs 80-lakh base price

Eight franchises begin bidding for 10 Indian players

The first player auction in the Hero Indian Super League got under way as the eight franchises entered bids for 10 Indian players. National football team captain Sunil Chhetri led the pack with a base price of Rs 80 lakh.

Unlike last year’s inaugural season, the 2015 edition of the ISL will have an auction followed by a player draft.

Each team must have a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 26 players, by retaining players from the first season, contracting in the free market, bidding in the auction, or draft them. The teams must have at least 13 Indian players and a minimum eight, but not more than 11, international players, including one marquee player.

Each team has a purse of Rs 21 crore this year. The teams can spend up to Rs 5.5 crore to retain last season’s players or take them on contract or draf. The remaining Rs 15.5 crore can be used to bid for 10 Indian players in the auction and retain, contract and draft international players.

Any player who has not received a bid in the auction will be added to the Indian player draft pool, which currently has 112 footballers, and the cost of the player will be his base price in the auction. The league’s promoters have also informed the teams of the incremental bid cap in order to streamline the auction.

This is the first time an auction is being held for a football tournament. Fans have, however, been treated to cricket’s Indian Premier League player auctions since 2008. The salary cap for the IPL this season was Rs 63 crore and the costliest base price was Rs 2 crore. Indian southpaw Yuvraj Singh attracted the highest bid from the Delhi Daredevils at Rs 16 crore.

The ISL is promoted by Star India and IMG Reliance and was launched last year. It has teams from eight cities and the inaugural season was won by Atletico de Kolkata. This year, the tournament will kick off on October 3 with a match between the reigning champions and the Abhishek Bachchan co-owned Chennaiyin FC.