Mumbai: The Indian Super League (ISL) will be introducing a player salary cap of Rs 20 crore for clubs for the upcoming second season of the franchise-based football tournament.
Football Sports Development Ltd (FSDL), the controlling body of ISL formed through a joint venture between IMG-Reliance and Star India, held its first Governing Council meeting here to review the inaugural season and present player guidelines for the next one.
As per the guidelines, besides the salary cap, each club "must have a minimum one marquee player" as part of its player retention policy.
Clubs are allowed to retain their marquee player from inaugural season or are free to sign one from open market with prior approval from the league.
A club can retain a minimum of one and maximum of five international players. Additionally, clubs are allowed to contract international players by themselves through the market directly.
As far as domestic players are concerned, a minimum of one and maximum of six can be retained by a club. Players who are not part of the retention list of clubs, can be signed by any ISL franchise in the open market until April.
In case they are still without contract, such players will be listed in the domestic draft.
Regarding the size of squad, each club will have have a minimum of 22 players with mandatory two developmental ones. Each team would consist of one marquee, eight international and 13 domestic players including the compulsory two under-23 developmental players.
And about maximum size, a club can have a squad size of 25. Additional quota of three players can have maximum two international players.
ISL will have auction for Indian players, who have played in the senior national team but missed out on the inaugural season. Each club will be eligible to add only one such player from the auction list consisting of maximum 12 to 15. Those not picked through auction will form part of the domestic players draft.
An ISL spokesperson said, "The new set of rules are defined to encourage clubs in player retention, assist them in managing the player costs and provide a level playing field for each club to prepare for the second season with reasonable and broadly equitable chance of winning the ISL 2015.
"The inaugural ISL had brought to fore many new faces of Indian football. The league encourages the clubs to retain such players to help them build an identity and fan base."
The Governing Council committee consist of all eight ISL participatory club representatives and officials from FSDL.
