Veterans like Cannavaro and Fowler ready to shine in India's Premier League Soccer

London, Jan 29(ANI): Indian football fans can now see some of world football's most famous veterans playing in the newly launched Premier League Soccer (PLS).

Former English Premier League superstars Robbie Fowler and Robert Pires are two of the six 'icon players' who could pocket as much as 1million pounds for seven weeks of work, when they will go up for bidding this week in an IPL-style auction.

There will be a total of six franchise teams in the PLS and each of them will have an overall budget of 2.6 million pounds. Each franchise would be allowed to pick up only one icon player from a list of six that includes Hernan Crespo, Fabio Cannavaro, Jay-Jay Okocha and Maniche.

PLS would also offer the likes of John Barnes and Peter Reid the chance of a mega payday, The Mirror reports.

The organizers believe that the presence of football icons like Cannavaro, Fowler and Crespo will play a big part in reviving football as a sport in a cricket-crazy nation like ours.

"When we present legends like Cannavaro and Fowler alongside our own boys I think it will be very exciting for the fans. This will change Indian football," said Bhaswar Goswami, Head of the Celebrity Management Group.

Goswami also revealed it was a hard job for them to convince these top players to play for the PLS since India has never made a name for itself in the sport.

"It was very tough to get top notch players to agree to come over here and play because we don't really have any history of football here," he added.

He further said that every year PLS would try to lure younger football icons to play in India.

"We needed to look at players that were nearing the end of their career but I strongly believe that each year we'll have new signings for the PLS and we'll have much younger players as 'icon' players," he added. (ANI)