French duo Mendy and Arnolin costliest players in ISL international draft

Former Hull City player Bernard Mendy will be one of the two costliest players in the international draft

French defenders Bernard Mendy and Gregory Arnolin will be the most expensive players of the Indian Super League international draft, Sportskeeda can reveal.

49 foreigners will be up for grabs on Thursday’s international draft in Mumbai with Mendy and Arnolin valued at 80,000 USD (48.6 lakh).

There are three other brackets with former Liverpool defender Josemi valued at 70,000 USD (42.5 lakh) but the price-tag of the majority of players is around 59,000 USD (35.9 lakh) with former Manchester United midfielder Bojan Djordjic and ex-Newcastle United and Sunderland striker Michael Chopra also coming in this category.

The rest are valued at around 39,000 USD (23.7 lakh) with the players in this category being the younger ones with lesser competitive experience.

Hence the top five costliest Indian players are more expensive than the highest-earning foreigners as Subrata Pal, Gouramangi Singh and Syed Rahim Nabi were valued at 80 lakh + 33% loan fee share and Nirmal Chettri and Sanju Pradhan valued at 70 lakh + 33% loan fee share.

By contrast, the two most expensive foreigners – Mendy and Arnolin – will be earning lesser with even the Indian midfield duo of Francis Fernandes (55 lakh + 35% loan fee share) and Lenny Rodrigues (55 lakh + 55% loan fee share) valued higher.

Thus organisers IMG-Reliance have been able to make some highly-experienced foreigners available for prices cheaper than some top Indian players.

32-year-old Mendy has represented France at international level four times besides appearing for clubs like PSG, Bolton Wanderers and Hull City.

Compatriot Arnolin, who is 33, has mainly played his football in France and Portugal and even last season was playing for Portuguese top tier outfit Pacos Ferreira.

34-year-old Josemi won the UEFA Champions League with Liverpool in 2004-05 besides playing for top Spanish clubs like Malaga, Villarreal and Mallorca. Last season he was playing for Greece Super League outfit Skoda Xanthi F.C.

More than 24 crore have been spent by the eight franchises on Indian players with six franchises investing close to 21 crore on the 84 players during the domestic draft last month. The average price-tag of the 49 foreigners is around 60,000 USD (36.5 lakh), which is higher than that of the 84 in the domestic draft – 23.8 lakh.

These 49 foreigners will be selected to complete the quota of seven international players in each franchise with marquee players like Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg expected to be put for selection in a separate draft later this month.

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Edited by Staff Editor