Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) 2019 Auction: Full list of foreign players bought

Mumbai, April 8: The players' auction for the seventh season of Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) is being held on Monday (April 8). This year's auction features 441 players from 13 countries.

The auction features 388 Indian and 53 overseas players. Each of the twelve franchise teams has a purse of Rs 4.4 crore to spend at the auction after deducting from the salaries of retained players.

Earlier, the franchises retained a total of 29 players for the upcoming season under the 'Elite Retained Players' category.

The auction proceedings began with the foreign players going under the hammer in which Mohammad Esmail Nabibakhsh of Iran attracted the highest bid of Rs 77.75 lakh by Bengal Warriors.

Another Iranian kabaddi star Abozar Mohajer Mighani will be lending his services to Telugu Titans after he was bought for the highest bid of Rs 75 lakh.

Jang Kun Lee, the Korean star, who played for Bengal Warriors until the previous season was purchased for Rs 40 lakh by three-time PKL champions Patna Pirates and he will now be raiding along with India's star raider Pardeep Narwal.

Here is the list of all the foreign players bought at the PKL 2019 Auction:

Mohammad Esmail Nabibakhsh - ₹77.75 lakh (Bengal Warriors)

Abozar Mohajer Mighani - ₹75 lakhs (Telugu Titans)

Jang Kun Lee - ₹40 lakh (Patna Pirates)

Saeed Ghaffari - ₹16.5 lakh (Dabang Delhi)

Hadi Oshtorak - ₹16 lakh (Patna Pirates)

Sanjay Shreshta - ₹10 lakh (Bengaluru Bulls)

Milat Sheibak - ₹10 lakh (Tamil Thalaivas)

Hadi Tajik - ₹10 lakh (Puneri Paltan)

Young Chang Ko - ₹10 lakh (U Mumba)

Lal Mohar Yadav - ₹10 lakh (Bengaluru Bulls)

Amir Hossain Maleki - ₹12.5 lakh (Haryana Steelers)

Mohammad Maghsoudlou - ₹35 lakh (Patna Pirates)

Mohammad Taghi - ₹15.5 lakh (Bengal Warriors)

Dong Geon Lee - ₹25 lakh (U Mumba)

Abolfazl Maghsoudlou - ₹15.5 lakh (Gujarat Fortunegiants)

Emad Sedhagat Nia - ₹11.25 lakh (Puneri Paltan)

Masud Karim - ₹10 lakh (UP Yoddha)

Dong Gyu Kim - ₹10 lakh (Jaipur Pink Panthers)

Malinda Chaturanga - ₹10 lakh (Jaipur Pink Panthers)

D Jennings - ₹10 lakh (Telugu Titans)

Tim Phonchoo - ₹10 lakh (Haryana Steelers)

The seventh season of PKL will be held from July 19 to October 9, an official said on Monday. Conceding that there was a dip in season 6 viewership, PKL commissioner Anupam Goswami cited the change in the league window as the main reason as it coincided with the festival season.

"We have gone back to the original window of July in season 7 after season 6 commenced in October 2018. "We will have the next season in 2020 also in July," Goswami said.

Goswami said while there had been an increase of 15 per cent in the scoring of points between season 5 and 6, the defenders had also tackled better with an increase of 21 per cent tackles between the last two seasons.