The highly anticipated Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) Season 11 player auction is scheduled to take place on August 15 and 16 in Mumbai. All 12 franchises will be vying for the best players to assemble their squads for the upcoming 2024 season. Each team must have a minimum of 18 players and a maximum of 25 on their roster.
While released players may find new teams during the auction, the ‘Final Bid Match’ (FBM) option offers a lifeline for previous franchises. Introduced in Season 6, the FBM allows teams to match the final bid for a player they previously released.
Here’s how the FBM works: after a round of bidding, a team that released a player will be given the opportunity to match the highest bid. They have the option to respond with either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. If they choose ‘Yes’, the team that released the player will acquire his services at the final bid price. If they choose ‘No’, the player will be awarded to the team that made the highest bid.
The FBM card can be used a maximum of three times per team, but its availability depends on the number of elite players retained by each team. Teams that have retained the maximum quota of six players can use the FBM card only once. However, this limit increases to three if they have retained five or fewer elite players.
For the 2024 auction, all twelve teams are eligible to use their FBM cards. This makes the bidding process even more dynamic and exciting for fans as teams fight to retain their core players and build competitive squads for Season 11.
