Crespo most expensive player in Premier League Soccer auction

Hernan Crespo became the hottest and most expensive property of a new Indian soccer league starting on 25th February after the Argentine striker fetched £536,000 in an auction of players and coaches on Monday. The ex-Chelsea frontman was snapped up by  the Barasat franchise of Premier League Soccer (PLS), which is modelled on cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket tournament and will be played in West Bengal. [caption id=“attachment_198254” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Hernan Crespo during his Inter Milan days. Reuters”]  [/caption] Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning captain Fabio Cannavaro cost Siliguri £530,000, while former Arsenal hero Robert Pires went to Howrah for £511,000. But the big names don’t stop there. Bolton’s entertaining Nigerian midfielder Jay-Jay Okocha (£351,000) and Liverpool great Robbie Fowler £338,000 went to Durgapur and Kolkata respectively. Five franchises collectively spent nearly £4.5million, each buying an ‘icon’ player, two overseas footballers and a coach.       ‘This auction is unprecedented not only in the history of Indian football but also for world football,’ Bhaswar Goswami, executive director of the Celebrity Management Group (CMG) which is organising the league, was quoted in the Daily Mail. ‘There is an expenditure cap and I must say that the franchises wisely spent their money,’ he said from Kolkata, which is the nation’s football capital and where the auction took place. Nearly 120,000 fans gave a rousing reception to Oliver Kahn in the German goalkeeper’s 2008 Bayern Munich swansong in Kolkata and Argentina’s World Cup talisman Diego Maradona almost brought the city to a standstill during his visit in the same year. Lionel Messi brought through the same reaction on his visit in 2010. Howrah will boast PLS’s most expensive coach after shelling out £143,000 for former Portugal central defender Fernando Couto. Former Nigerian player and coach Samson Siasia (Durgapur) and Icelander Teitur Thordorson (Barasat) were both sold for £134,000. Former Manchester City and Sunderland manager Peter Reid (Kolkata) and Marco Etcheverry (Siliguri), who is touted as the greatest Bolivian player, went for £128,000.