HighestPaid PKL Players 2026: Full Auction Salary List
Somewhere in a Mumbai auction room, a bidding war between two team owners just turned one raider into a millionaire in under sixty seconds. That is not an exaggeration. That is genuinely how fast PKL’s biggest auction prices get decided.
Right now, the highest-paid PKL player is Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh, an Iranian all-rounder who sold to Gujarat Giants for 2.23 crore rupees at the Season 12 auction in May 2025, the third straight season he crossed the 2-crore mark. Since Season 13’s auction has not happened yet, this list reflects the most recent confirmed prices, with a look at who could challenge for the top spot next.
This guide breaks down the highest-paid players from recent PKL auctions, explains how these prices actually get decided, and looks at where Season 13’s salary numbers might land once the next auction happens.
Why Auction Salaries Matter Beyond Just Bragging Rights
A big auction price tag is not just a fun headline number. It carries real weight for how a team builds its squad, how fans perceive a franchise’s ambitions, and even how fantasy league players approach their season-long roster decisions.
Teams that spend heavily on one or two marquee names often build their entire game plan around those players, which can create both huge highs and real vulnerabilities. If a 2-crore signing gets injured or suffers a slump, a team that concentrated its budget there has far less depth to fall back on compared to a franchise that spread its spending more evenly.
For fantasy league players specifically, auction prices are a genuinely useful signal, though not a perfect one. A high price tag suggests a team believes strongly in that player’s near-term output, which often, though not always, translates into consistent playing time and raid or tackle opportunities once the season starts.
Fans also use auction results to gauge a franchise’s ambition heading into a new season. A team willing to break its own spending record, the way Gujarat Giants did with Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh, sends a clear signal that they are building toward a serious championship push rather than a rebuilding year.
What Happens When a Big-Money Signing Does Not Work Out
Not every expensive auction buy turns into an immediate success story, and it is worth remembering that a high price tag is a bet, not a guarantee. Injuries, fitness issues, or simply a difficult adjustment to a new team’s system can all derail even the most expensive signing’s season.
When this happens, teams face a difficult decision heading into the next auction cycle: retain the player and hope for a bounce-back season, or release them and absorb the reputational hit of a big-money signing not working out. This is part of why FBM cards carry so much weight in team planning, since they let a team hedge its bets without fully committing to a long-term retention decision immediately after a rough season.
Fans and analysts often use a player’s price tag as a benchmark for judging their season, sometimes unfairly. A 1-crore raider who puts up solid, consistent numbers might get criticized more harshly than a 30-lakh player putting up similar output, simply because expectations scale directly with the price paid.
How to Track Auction Prices Once Season 13 Begins
Once the Season 13 auction actually happens, expect prices to be reported in real time by prokabaddi.com, major sports news outlets, and team-specific social media accounts announcing their own signings as bids close.
The most reliable way to track this is following the auction live rather than waiting for next-day summaries, since prices and player movement between teams can shift the entire narrative within a single hour of bidding. Star Sports and JioHotstar typically carry live auction coverage the same way they cover the season itself.
Our own coverage of the Season 13 auction will track confirmed prices as they come in, updating this list the moment a new record price gets set or an unexpected name goes unsold, the way Pardeep Narwal did at the Season 12 auction.
Top 10 Highest-Paid PKL Players (Most Recent Auctions)
Here is how the biggest auction prices stack up, drawing from the two most recent PKL auctions, Season 11 in August 2024 and Season 12 in May 2025.
| Rank | Player | Team | Price | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh | Gujarat Giants | 2.23 crore | Season 12 |
| 2 | Devank Dalal | Bengal Warriorz | 2.205 crore | Season 12 |
| 3 | Sachin Tanwar | Tamil Thalaivas | 2.15 crore | Season 11 |
| 4 | Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh | Haryana Steelers | 2.07 crore | Season 11 |
| 5 | Guman Singh | Gujarat Giants | 1.97 crore | Season 11 |
| 6 | Ashu Malik (via FBM) | Dabang Delhi K.C. | 1.90 crore | Season 12 |
| 7 | Arjun Deshwal | Tamil Thalaivas | 1.405 crore | Season 12 |
Notice something interesting here. Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh appears twice on this list, at two different teams, which tells you a lot about how the auction market actually works. A player does not stay with the team that first made them a big-money signing if a rival team offers more the next time around.
Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh: The Reigning Highest-Paid Player
The Iranian all-rounder has become the closest thing PKL has to a guaranteed auction headline. His 2.23 crore price tag at the Season 12 auction made him the first player in league history to cross the 2-crore mark for three straight seasons in a row, an unmatched streak.
What makes his case interesting is that he did not stay with the same franchise across those seasons. Haryana Steelers paid 2.07 crore for him at the Season 11 auction, only for Gujarat Giants to outbid everyone and land him for even more the following year. That kind of movement shows just how competitive the market for proven all-rounders has become.
How PKL Auction Prices Actually Get Decided
Understanding why some players sell for crores while others go for the base price comes down to a mix of factors that teams weigh during the bidding process.
Player Category and Base Price
Every player entering the auction gets sorted into Category A, B, C, or D based on past performance, with Category A players commanding the highest base prices. In Season 12, Category A started at 30 lakh rupees, meaning even before bidding begins, top-tier players already carry a higher price floor than newer talent.
Recent Form and Awards
Devank Dalal’s 2.205 crore price tag at the Season 12 auction came right after he won Season 11’s Best Raider award. Teams pay close attention to who just had a standout season, since recent form is often the clearest signal of what a player can deliver immediately rather than a hopeful long-term bet.
Positional Scarcity
All-rounders and elite defenders tend to command premium prices partly because there are simply fewer of them available compared to raiders. A team desperate for a specific defensive profile might bid well above a player’s “expected” price just to fill a genuine gap in their squad.
Bidding War Momentum
Sometimes price has less to do with cold analysis and more to do with two teams getting locked into a back-and-forth bidding war neither wants to lose. Auction rooms can develop their own momentum, where a price climbs well past what anyone predicted simply because two franchises refuse to back down.
The FBM Rule: How Teams Buy Back Their Own Stars
Ashu Malik’s place on this list comes with an asterisk worth explaining. He returned to Dabang Delhi K.C. for 1.90 crore rupees through the Final Bid Match rule, commonly called FBM, which lets a team match the winning bid on one of its own released players instead of losing them permanently to a rival.
This rule adds a layer of strategy beyond simple bidding. A team has to decide in advance which released players are worth using a precious FBM card on, since only a limited number of these cards exist per team, tied to how many Elite Retained Players that franchise kept before the auction.
Dabang Delhi K.C.’s decision to use an FBM card on Ashu Malik arguably shaped their entire Season 12 championship run, showing how these buy-back decisions can matter just as much as any fresh auction-day bid.
Which Teams Spend the Most on Star Signings
Not every franchise approaches the auction the same way, and looking at recent spending patterns reveals real differences in team strategy when it comes to chasing big-name players.
Gujarat Giants: Willing to Set Records
Gujarat Giants have shown a clear willingness to break the bank for the right player, landing Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh for a record 2.23 crore rupees at the Season 12 auction and Guman Singh for 1.97 crore the season before. This pattern suggests a front office comfortable using a large share of its purse on one marquee name rather than spreading spending evenly across the squad.
Bengal Warriorz: Rewarding Proven Recent Form
Bengal Warriorz’s 2.205 crore signing of Devank Dalal, fresh off his Best Raider award, shows a different philosophy: paying a premium specifically for a player who just proved his current form at the highest level, rather than betting on potential or reputation alone.
Dabang Delhi K.C.: Protecting Their Own Core
Dabang Delhi K.C.’s use of the FBM rule to retain Ashu Malik for 1.90 crore rupees reflects a strategy built around continuity. Rather than chasing a new name at auction, they prioritized keeping a player already familiar with their system, a decision that arguably paid off with their Season 12 championship run.
Tamil Thalaivas: Building Around Raiding Talent
Tamil Thalaivas have twice shown up near the top of recent auction spending, landing Sachin Tanwar for 2.15 crore in Season 11 and Arjun Deshwal for 1.405 crore in Season 12. Both signings reinforce a clear team identity built around strong, aggressive raiding talent.
How Player Salaries Compare Across Positions
Raiders tend to dominate headlines and the very top of the price charts, but that does not mean defenders and all-rounders are cheap across the board. Understanding typical price ranges by position helps make sense of why certain signings surprise fans more than others.
| Position | Typical Top Price Range | Notable Recent Example |
|---|---|---|
| Raider | 1.4 crore – 2.2 crore | Devank Dalal, 2.205 crore |
| All-Rounder | 1.9 crore – 2.23 crore | Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh, 2.23 crore |
| Defender | 0.3 crore – 1 crore (typical top range, with exceptions) | Fazel Atrachali, sold at base price of 30 lakh in Season 12 despite his reputation |
Defenders as a group tend to sell for noticeably less than raiders and all-rounders, which lines up with how PKL’s scoring system rewards raiding more visibly than defense, even though good defenders are just as important to winning matches. This gap has narrowed slightly in recent seasons, but it remains real.
How Salaries Have Grown Since PKL’s Early Seasons
Context matters here, and looking back at PKL’s early auctions shows just how far individual player prices have climbed. In Season 1, the entire team purse was just 60 lakh rupees, and the highest individual purchase that year topped out at 12.8 lakh rupees total.
Compare that to today, where a single player, Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh, sold for nearly twenty times that entire Season 1 record purchase. Team purses themselves have grown from 60 lakh to 5 crore rupees per franchise, and the number of players crossing the 1-crore mark keeps climbing each season.
| Season | Players Crossing 1 Crore | Highest Single Price |
|---|---|---|
| Season 11 (2024) | 8 players | 2.15 crore |
| Season 12 (2025) | 10 players | 2.23 crore |
That jump from 8 to 10 players crossing the 1-crore mark in a single season shows the salary ceiling is still rising, not leveling off. If this trend continues, Season 13 could realistically produce an even higher record price than Shadloui Chiyaneh’s current mark.
Why Some Star Players Surprisingly Sell for Less
Not every well-known name commands a big price tag, and Season 12 offered a striking example. Fazel Atrachali, widely considered the best defender in PKL history, sold for just the base price of 30 lakh rupees, far below what his reputation might suggest.
Even more dramatically, Pardeep Narwal, one of the most decorated raiders the league has ever seen, went completely unsold at the Season 12 auction. Teams increasingly favor younger, fitter raiders with room to grow over proven veterans nearing the twilight of their careers, and auction day does not always reward past achievements the way fans might expect.
This pattern is worth remembering before assuming a bigger name automatically means a bigger price tag. Auction rooms reward what a team believes a player can deliver right now and over the next few seasons, not necessarily what that player has already accomplished.
Who Could Break the Record at the Season 13 Auction
Predicting exact auction prices months in advance is genuinely difficult, but a few candidates stand out as players worth watching once Season 13’s auction, expected in July or August 2026, actually happens.
Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh remains the obvious name to watch, given his streak of three straight 2-crore-plus seasons. A fourth consecutive year at that price point, or higher, would be an unmatched achievement in league history and a near-certain headline from whichever team lands him.
Beyond him, watch for a new wave of raiders coming off standout individual seasons, similar to how Devank Dalal’s Best Raider award directly translated into his Season 12 price tag. Award-winning form from Season 13’s own eventual playoffs and awards ceremony could shape who becomes the next breakout auction name, though that obviously will not be clear until the current season concludes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the highest-paid player in PKL right now?
Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh holds the current record, selling to Gujarat Giants for 2.23 crore rupees at the Season 12 auction in May 2025, the third straight season he crossed the 2-crore mark.
How much is the PKL team purse per franchise?
Each franchise works with a base purse of 5 crore rupees, though this shrinks depending on how much a team spends retaining its own players before the auction begins.
Why did Pardeep Narwal go unsold despite his reputation?
Teams increasingly favor younger raiders with strong fitness profiles over experienced veterans, and auction-day decisions do not always match a player’s historical achievements. Pardeep Narwal went unsold at the Season 12 auction despite being one of the league’s most decorated raiders.
What is the FBM rule and how does it affect player salaries?
FBM, or Final Bid Match, lets a team buy back one of its own released players by matching the winning auction bid. Ashu Malik returned to Dabang Delhi K.C. for 1.90 crore rupees this way at the Season 12 auction.
When will the highest-paid player for Season 13 be known?
Season 13’s auction is expected in July or August 2026. Until then, prices from the Season 12 auction remain the most recent confirmed figures for PKL’s highest-paid players.
Related Guides
Want the full breakdown of how the auction system itself works, including purse rules and retention limits? Our PKL Season 13 auction guide covers it in detail. Curious what “retained” and “released” actually mean for a player’s career? Check our retained aur released players guide. And to see how Gujarat Giants have used their biggest auction signings on the mat, visit our Gujarat Giants team page.
