IPL 2025 Auction and Retention Rules Explained, Final Date to Submit Retention List
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is set for one of its biggest changes ahead of the IPL 2025 season. The IPL Governing Council has approved major changes in the retention rules at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Bengaluru. Before the mega auction of IPL 2025, the franchise can retain six players. The Right to Match (RTM) card has returned to the IPL after 6 years, while the Impact Player rule will also remain in force.
Impact Player rule
The Apex Council of IPL has decided to retain the Impact Player rule in its meeting. Some senior cricketers, including Indian captain Rohit Sharma, had quietly criticized this decision, after which there was talk that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) could remove this rule but now it has been decided to retain it. The Apex Council has decided to keep this rule for 2025 to 2027.
Retention Policy
Talking about retention policy, all 10 teams are allowed to retain six players each (5 capped and 1 uncapped). At the same time, each team can be allowed to use Right to Match (RTM card) on any one player. Last time the purse of each team was Rs 100 crore, but this time the purse is increased to rupees 120 crore.
Know what will be the terms and conditions for retention
Let us tell you that out of the six players that the franchise can retain, at least one player should be an uncapped Indian player. The remaining five could all be Indians or foreigners. Apart from this, the six players can be retained and the franchise can retain them under a combination of direct retention and RTM options or only under RTM options.
What will be the retention salary?
- First retention: 18 crores
- Second retention: 14 crores
- Third retention: 11 crores
- Fourth retention: 18 crores
- Fifth retention: 14 crores
- Sixth retention (uncapped): 4 crores
NEWS 🚨 – IPL Governing Council announces TATA IPL Player Regulations 2025-27.
READ – https://t.co/3XIu1RaYns #TATAIPL pic.twitter.com/XUFkjKqWed
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) September 28, 2024
The Right to Match (RTM) Rule
In the Governing Council meeting of IPL, it has been decided to bring back the Right to Match rule. The franchise that retains five players before the auction will be allowed to spend Rs 75 crore from the purse out of the total amount of Rs 120 crore. Under the new rules, it has come to light that teams will be allowed to keep the auction amount of Rs 120, which is Rs 20 crore more than the last season.
Ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction, the BCCI has introduced a substantial change to the way the RTM is used. Previously, the team could simply pay the highest bid amount to retain the player. However, this time the highest bidder will get one more chance to raise the amount and place a final bid for the player.
Let’s understand this with an example: If Ishan Kishan is being auctioned and Royal Challengers Bengaluru has placed the highest bid of INR 6 crores for him, then Mumbai Indians (Kishan’s current franchise is MI) will be first asked if they wish to use their RTM card. If MI agree, then RCB will be given one more chance to increase and place a final bid. Now RCB can raise it to any amount they want, let’s suppose they raised it to INR 9 crores, then MI can use their RTM and re-sign Ishan Kishan for INR 9 crores.
Total Salary Cap
The auction purse for franchises for IPL 2025 has been set at Rs 120 crore. The total salary cap will now include auction purse, incremental performance pay and match fees. Earlier the total salary cap (auction purse + incremental performance pay) in 2024 was Rs 110 crore which will now be Rs 146 crore (2025), Rs 151 crore (2026) and Rs 157 crore (2027).
Match Fees
Match fees have been introduced for the first time in the history of IPL. Each playing member (including impact player) will get a match fee of Rs 7.5 lakh per match. This will be in addition to their contracted amount. Any foreign player will have to register for the big auction. If the foreign player does not register, he will be ineligible for registration in the next year’s player auction.
Overseas Players Registration Policy
- To be part of the IPL, any overseas player must register for the big auction. If any overseas player doesn’t register, he will be ineligible to register in the following year’s player auction.
- Any player who registers for the auction and after being selected in the auction, makes himself unavailable before the start of the season, will be banned from participating in the tournament and auction for 2 seasons.
Indian players will decide the salary of foreign players in the IPL
- If the highest bid for an Indian player in the 2025 auction is Rs 16 crore, then in the IPL 2025 auction no foreign player will be able to get more than Rs 16 crore.
- Similarly, if an Indian is sold for more than Rs 18 crore in this auction, then a foreign player will be able to get a maximum of Rs 18 crore in the auction.
- If a foreign player is sold for Rs 25 crore, the remaining Rs 7 crore or Rs 9 crore will be given to BCCI for the welfare of the players.
Uncapped Player Policy
A capped Indian player will become uncapped if the player has not played in the starting XI in international cricket (Test matches, ODIs, T20Is) in the last five calendar years before the conduct of the relevant season or does not have a central contract with the BCCI. This will apply only to Indian players.
Final Date to Submit Retention List
The final date to submit the list of retained players is 31, October 2024 till 5 PM IST. It is important to note that for retention purposes, any player who gets capped on or before 31 October 2024, will be considered as a capped player.
