NEW DELHI: The player draft and auction for Pro Volleyball League’s inaugural season will take place here on 14 December. The league is scheduled to kick off its first season in February 2019.
Over 100 Indian players as well as several top international stars will go under the hammer in the auction that will see six franchises participate.
British sports commentator Patrick Kinghorn will be seen handling the auctioneer duties.
For the auctions, a total of 117 Indian players have been categorized in four categories – icon players, Indian sr. International players, domestic players and U-21 players. The international players will be picked by the franchises through a draft process.
Each team will have 12 players, with the provision of a maximum of two reserve players. Each squad will have two sr. international players, Indian icon player and a minimum of two Indian U-21 players. The rest of the players will be selected from the pool of Indian international and Indian domestic players. Each team will have a salary purse of Rs 7.5 million.
International stars include Olympic Gold medalist David Lee, Canada’s Rudy Verhoeff, USA’s Paul Lotman and Carson Clark, Serbia’s Novika Bjelika and Turkey’s Tomislav Coskovic. Indian icon players include Akhin, Ukkra Pandian, Deepesh, Gurinder Singh, Vinit Kumar, Jerome Vinith and Prabhagaran S.
The six teamss competing in the inaugural edition of Pro Volleyball League are Ahmedabad Defenders, Calicut Heroes, Chennai Spartans, U Mumba Volley, Black Hawks Hyderabad and Kochi Blue Spikers.
The league will be played in two legs across Kochi and Chennai from February 2 to February 22nd and will be broadcast live on SONY TEN 3 and SONY SIX.
