Both the players were not retained by their respective teams but have been put in the top most wage bracket for the draft. Lyngdoh and Anas will set the team which acquires them back by ₹1.10 crores each.
Stephen Constantine’s inspirational intervention in Jamshedpur
Lyngdoh, who was initially not retained by Bengaluru FC, was involved in negotiations with FC Pune City but ultimately failed to agree on a deal while Anas Edathodika’s wage demands put Delhi Dynamos off who decided not to negotiate with the Kerala-born defender and go into the draft without retaining any player.
Other notable names in the top 10 expensive players are goalkeeper Subrata Paul, striker Robin Singh and full-backs Rino Anto and Pritam Kotal.
The salary cap for each team (both Indian and foreign players) has been set at ₹18 Crores and only a maximum of ₹12.5 Crores can be utilised to sign overseas players and the teams will be formulating who to buy in the draft now depending on the contract values of each player.
A total of 199 Indian players have registered for the draft which will be held on Sunday, 23rd July, in Mumbai.
Here are the top 10 players and their contract values (age in brackets):
Eugeneson Lyngdoh (30) - ₹1.10 crores
Anas Edathodika (30) - ₹1.10 crores
Subrata Paul (30) - ₹87 lakhs
Pritam Kotal (23) - ₹75 lakhs
Robin Singh (27) - ₹65 lakhs
Balwant Singh (30) - ₹65 lakhs
Arindam Bhattacharya (28) - ₹64 lakhs
Rino Anto (29) - ₹63 lakhs
Lenny Rodrigues (30) - ₹60 lakhs
Narayan Das (23) - ₹58 lakhs
Pronay Halder (24) - ₹58 lakhs
NOTE: The club which picks Arindam Bhattacharya will have to shell out ₹73 lakhs which includes a ₹9 lakhs as a transfer fee to FC Pune City.
