Bengaluru, June 12: As many as three out of eight icon players – Mithun Manjunath, Prakash Raj and Sai Prateek fetched their maximum cap price of Rs 3.5 lakh apiece in the Grand Prix Badminton League (GPBL) auctions here on Sunday.
The inaugural edition of the tournament will be held from July 1 to 10 at the Karnataka Badminton Association. Mithun was picked up by Malnad Falcons, while Sai Pratheek was purchased by Mandya Bulls in a draw of lots after four teams bid for the player and Prakash was bought by KGF Wolves at the top price.
The other icon players who went under the hammer were Saneeth Dayanand (Kodagu Tigers – Rs 2.6 lakh), Daniel Farid (Bandipur Tuskers – Rs 3.1 lakh), Raghu Mariswamy (Mangaluru Sharks – Rs 3.3 Lakhs), Tanya Hemanth (Mysore Panthers – Rs 3.2 lakh) and Janani Ananthkumar (Bengaluru Lions – Rs 2.5 lakh).
Each team comprises of eight players including one icon player, a minimum of two Tier-1 and Tier-2 players respectively and a minimum of two female players including the ‘icon’ category.
The player purse per team was Rs 12 lakh out of which Rs 2 lakh was reserved for player awards.
The base fee for ‘icon’ players was set at Rs 2.5 lakh and was capped at Rs 3.5 lakh.
The minimum salary for Tier-1 players was fixed at Rs 75,000 while capping it at Rs 2 lakh while Tier-3 players’ minimum salary was Rs 25,000 and a maximum of Rs 50,000.
In the auction where 238 players had registered, 64 players were bought. (PTI)
