SA20 Auction: Teams Allowed Six Player Retentions, RTM Card Introduced

The fourth season of the SA20 is gearing up with significant changes to player acquisition rules. The league announced on Tuesday, June 24th, that the player auction will be held in Johannesburg on September 9th. Teams will have the opportunity to retain a select number of players before the auction begins.

All the franchises will see an increase in the purse to USD 2.3 million © Sportzpics

Each of the six franchises will have a significantly increased salary purse of USD 2.3 million to build their squads. With a minimum of 72 slots available across all teams, the auction promises to be highly competitive.

Franchises are permitted to retain a maximum of six players, or pre-sign them. Within these retentions, a maximum of three can be overseas players. Each team is allowed a maximum squad size of 18 players, with at least 11 slots reserved for local South African talent.

A unique "wild card" signing is also available to each team, allowing them to recruit either a South African or foreign player whose league fee falls outside the standard salary cap.

The SA20 auction will introduce the Right To Match (RTM) card for the first time. This allows franchises to match the winning bid for a player who was on their roster in the previous season, ensuring they can retain valuable players. The number of RTM cards available to each franchise will depend on how many South African players they have already retained.

The Rookie Draft, previously a feature of the auction, has been discontinued. Instead, franchises are now required to include a minimum of two Under-23 players in their final 19-player squads.

"The SA20 Season 4 Player Auction is setting up to be the most exciting yet, with about 60% of player slots available for the franchises to fill," said Stephen Cook, Head of Cricket Operations at SA20. "Mechanisms such as RTM cards, Wildcard players and an increased salary cap are sure to create interesting situations for teams and will allow them to strategically select their squads. We have seen some life-changing transactions already in the past few years and the upcoming auction should see plenty more."

Richard Madley will return as the auctioneer for the fourth season, which is scheduled to begin on December 26th.