Riding on the back of five phenomenal seasons, the player auction for the sixth season of the Pro Kabaddi League is all set to take place on May 30 and 31 in Mumbai and will witness teams strategising to build their strongest teams.
A total of 422 players will be drafted into the auction pool of which 58 are overseas players and 87 are players from the Future Kabaddi Heroes Programme (FKH), a nationwide talent scouting programme.
The auctions will witness player representation from 14 other countries including Iran, Bangladesh, Japan, Kenya, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Sri Lanka.
The two-day auction will mark the first event for season 6, with the franchises coming together to build their teams. Of the 12 franchises, nine have chosen their Elite Retained Players and the remaining three will construct their teams from scratch.
Continuing the spirit of consistent evolution, the League has introduced the concept of "Final Bid Match", whereby the franchises shall be entitled to match the final bid made by another franchise, for one or at most two players from its Season 5 squad, in accordance with the guidelines set in the Player Policy.
Anupam Goswami, league commissioner, Pro Kabaddi, said, "The player auction for Pro Kabaddi Season 6 will be the culmination of the player policy for the upcoming season, which has been designed for long term association as well as even redistribution of athletic talent. It epitomises the continuing advancement in Pro Kabaddi for quality of competition, along with the right balance between compensation to athletes and affordability for their employers".
The following players have been retained for Season 6:
Bengal Warriors (Surjeet Singh, Maninder Singh), Bengaluru Bulls (Rohit Kumar), Dabang Delhi (K.C. Meraj Sheykh), Gujarat Fortunegiants (Sachin, Sunil Kumar, Mahendra Rajput), Haryana Steelers (Kuldeep Singh), Patna Pirates (Pardeep Narwal, Jaideep, Jawahar Dagar, Manish Kumar), Puneri Paltan (Sandeep Narwal, Rajesh Mondal, More G.B., Girish Ernak), Tamil Thalaivas (Ajay Thakur, Amit Hooda, C. Arun), Telugu Titans (Nilesh Salunke, Mohsen Maghsoudloujafari).