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.
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.
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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.
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 Governing Council committee consist of all eight ISL participatory club representatives and officials from FSDL.