Sunil Chhetri spearheads list in ISL Player Auction

Star striker Sunil Chhetri spearheads the list of players who are set to go under the auctioner's hammer at the first "Player Auction" of the Indian Super League Football

Mumbai: Star striker Sunil Chhetri spearheads the list of players who are set to go under the auctioner's hammer at the first "Player Auction" of the Indian Super League Football, which is scheduled here tomorrow.

The 30-year-old four-time AIFF Player of the Year and highest goal scorer for the country commands the highest base price set for the day at Rs 80 lakh and is among 10 Indian players set to feature in the auction ahead of the October 3-December 6 Season 2 of the tournament.

Sunil Chhetri. Pic/ AFP

Other than Chhetri, who is expected to trigger an intense bidding war among the eight franchises are: Karanjeet Singh (base price Rs 60 lakh), Anas Edathodika, Arata Izumi, Robin Singh (all commanding base price of Rs 40 lakh), Thoi Singh (Rs 39 lakh), Eugeneson Lyngdoh (Rs 27.50 lakh), Jackichand Singh, Seityasen Singh (both Rs 20 lakh) and Rino Anto (Rs 17.50 lakh).

All these players, who had missed on the inaugural season of the tournament last year owning to their individual contracts with respective I-League clubs, have shown keen interest to be part of the League's Season 2.

Six of these ten players -- Chhetri, Robin Singh, Thoi Singh, Izumi, Edathodika and Karanjeet -- have signed with Football Sports Development Limited, the promoters of Hero ISL, as free agents.

Jackichand Singh and Seityasen Singh have been loaned from I- League club Royal Wahingdoh FC while Rino Anto and Eugeneson Lyngdoh are loaned from Bengaluru FC. Additionally, an extensive list of 113 Indian players have been made available to 8 franchise club owners through the Player Draft, which is also to be held on the same day. The eight franchises have 64 Indian players on their roster - either retained from last year or signed from the open market.

The comprehensive Draft list would help them to fill up a total of 40 positions of the Indian player quota. Other than the celebrity club owners, that includes former India cricket captain Saurav Ganguly who is to be present, each club would be represented by their head coach/ assistant coach and technical staff during the Auction and Draft.

A lot many players in the Draft list command base prices which are in excess of Rs 20 lakh.

The highest among them are free agents are: T Saran Singh (Rs 33 lakh) and Keegan Pereira (Rs 32 lakh). Some others are: Gurjinder Kumar (Rs 27 lakh), Augustin Fernandes (Rs 26 lakh), Nicolas Colaco and Gilbert Oliveira (both Rs 23 lakh), all of them on loan from Salgaocar, and free agents Beevan D'Mello (Rs 24 lakh) and Zakeer Mundampara (Rs 23 lakh).

Mohun Bagan goalkeeper Shilton Paul has been pegged at a base price of Rs 22.50 lakh. A majority of players have been fixed with base prices below Rs 10 lakh. Each franchise club has been given a salary cap of Rs 20 crore for the season to be spent on the players.

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