BANGALORE: Six of the proposed eight teams found franchisee bidders for the Sports Excellence proposed Karnataka Badminton League late on Tuesday.
The teams are: Aratt Fighters (Muthukrishnan & Team); HB Challengers (Krishnakumar & Team); White Peacock (Shivaprakash); A Former Player (Bharath Sosale); Team Li Ning (Kumar Sports, highest bidder) and Team Victor.
A maximum of eight teams are to be formed and the first two teams who sign the documents will be awarded the remaining two teams.
The tournament is to be played at the KBA hall from Nov 5 to 9 and will have a prize money of Rs 10 lakh.
The main players who will be available for the teams are: Ashwini Ponnappa, Mohit Kamat, Aditya Prakash, Rohan Castelino, Prakash Jolly, Abhishek Yeligar, Jagadish Yadav, Sonic Prabhu Desai, Rishiket Yeligar, Guru Prasad, Vineet Manuel, SDS Krishna, Venketesh Prasad, Adarsh Kumar,Abijit, Reshma Karthik, Jacqueline Rose Kunnath, Sindhu, Uttara, Mahima, Nithya Sosale, Meenashi BR, Poorvisha, Adfa,
Anup Sridhar who is injured and Aravind Bhat, who has international commitments, will not be part of any team.
Anup Sridhar and KBA secretary N C Sudhir opened the bid documents and announced the successful bidders.
“The KBA is there for the development of badminton. We are giving full support to Sports Excellence headed by Thomas Kunnath and Vijay Lancy in this mega project. It will be a good opportunity for Karnataka players to show their mettle,” said Sudhir.
“A well organised league is the solution for the development of any game. I am presently playing in the French League and earlier was part of the Danish league. I have talked to many of my fellow-players and all are excited about KBL. Unfortunately, last week I strained my shoulder muscles and won’t be able to participate in this edition of KBL as I have been advised rest for three weeks. It will be definitely my priority to play the KBL in the years to come,” said International Anup Sridhar. “Yonex is always there for badminton and will very much be part of KBL. I wish the organisers a grand success. All the best to all the teams as well. We are ready to sponsor the franchisee teams,” said Manoj Kumar of Yonex, the co-sponsors.
Thomas Kunnath, the KBL Chairman, said that “all the franchisees will be part of the KBL family from now on. Together we will work for the development of badminton in Karnataka.”
“Sports Excellence has joined hands with the Karnataka Badminton Association to launch the KBL. I am sure KBL will go a long way for developing the game in Karnataka. We started off having plans for six franchisee teams but after seeing the response from players we thought of increasing it to eight. Now, we have 80 players, 32 Juniors and 16 former players who will get opportunities,” said Vijay Lancy, the KBL organising secretary.