India’s franchise-based hockey tournament, Hockey India League (HIL), marked the end of its seven-year-long hiatus with the official auction for the sixth edition of the tournament being organised in Delhi on October 13, 14, and 15. Hockey India earlier announced that the tournament would be even bigger this time around as it will also feature a women’s league for the first time ever. However, on October 15, the day of the women’s auction, something unusual happened as multiple domestic players, who had set their base price at Rs 10 lakh, asked the HIL governing committee to reduce their base price to Rs 2 lakh.
The request came after domestic players with high base prices began to go unsold in large numbers, as the four participating teams found it difficult to bid for them with just Rs 2 crore as their total purse to assemble a squad of 24 players. The teams had already spent a lot of money on the top-tier talents and were in no position to bid on these players and still have a full squad of 24 players.
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According to reports, the main reason behind the issue was the reduction in the number of overall teams from six to four before the auction. With six teams in the fray, they would have had a chance to bid for certain players and still have ample money left in their purse to bid for the domestic players. However, the decrease in the number of franchises meant that the number of slots for players was reduced from 144 to 96, which eventually resulted in fewer players getting bids during the auction.
The HIL governing committee, after multiple requests, allowed the unsold players to reduce their base price from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 2 lakh and also gave the players who went unsold earlier a second chance at the auction table.
First Published: Oct 16 2024 | 2:56 PM IS