Juan Pablo Sorin

Calcutta: The much-hyped Premier League Soccer (PLS), which has attracted renowned footballers like Hernan Crespo, Fabio Cannavaro and Robert Pires among others, will get underway from March 24.

The tournament will be a 35-match affair with the final scheduled to be played on May 6, thereby coinciding with the Indian Premier League (IPL), which starts from April 4.

A move that may backfire, as it looks silly to pit the maiden season of the tournament against the IPL, which has already become a crowd favourite. Bhaswar Goswami, the head of Celebrity Management Group (the commercial partner of the PLS), however, seemed positive.

“I initially planned to end the tournament by April 9. But we could not schedule the tournament on those lines because things got delayed, as we had to follow some procedures. We are still remaining positive that football lovers will come to watch the stars,” said Goswami.

The organisers, however, are contemplating scheduling the matches in Calcutta in such a way that they do not clash with the Kolkata Knight Riders’ ties.

Utpal Ganguli, the secretary of the Indian Football Association (IFA), sounded optimistic.

“We are not challenging anybody. But looking at the fan following of football all over the world, I think football will win hands down.”

Ganguli also informed that the Indian players will be auctioned on February 12 with their base prices in the range of Rs 2-3 lakh. The winners of the tournament will get more than Rs 50 lakh while the total prize money will be Rs 1.5 crore.

The franchisees have also finalised their names. While the Calcutta franchise will be named Kolkata Camelians, Durgapur will be Durgapur Vox Champions and Siliguri will be called Bengal Tuskers. Barasat and Howrah had already named their teams Uro Musketeers and Howrah Manchester respectively.

Meanwhile, Greymind Communications have showed interest in the Haldia franchise. Argentina’s 2006 World Cup captain Juan Pablo Sorin was announced as the icon player of Haldia while John Barnes will be their coach.

The foreign players will arrive in the city early next month as the pre-season training would begin on March 3.