IPL GC chairman says CSK and RR need not pay any franchisee fee for the next two years
Rajeev Shukla
New Delhi: The BCCI’s four-member working group, formed to study the Justice Lodha panel’s verdict relating to the IPL 2013 corruption scandal, on Monday met for the first time to discuss the way forward for the cash-rich league’s next edition and said the sponsors were fully behind the Board.
The Board had given the committee six weeks’ time to draw up a roadmap for the IPL after the Justice Lodha committee suspended the owners of the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals Gurunath Maiyappan and Raj Kundra while banning the franchises for two years last month.
“We have started meeting all the stakeholders from today. Today the representatives of Yes Bank came and met the members of the working group. Yes Bank is one of our sponsors.
Similarly we will meet other sponsors and also speak to them about how to make IPL 9 a success,” IPL Governing Council Chairman Rajeev Shukla, who is also heading the working group, said.
After this round in Delhi, the working group will move to Mumbai. “In Mumbai we plan to meet at least four franchise owners. We have set the ball rolling. We have to discuss all the possibilities about new teams and future of players,” he added.
Asked if the sponsors are wary because of the controversies surrounding the T20 tournament, he said “Absolutely not. Sponsors are fully behind us. They are bullish.”
Asked if the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals will need to pay franchise fee during the two years that they are suspended, he said, “No, they don’t need to pay anything. Neither do they pay anything to us nor do we have to pay anything to them.”
The working group comprises Shukla, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry and IPL governing council member and former captain Sourav Ganguly, and will be assisted by Usha Nath Bannerjee, the Board’s legal counsel. All of them were present in Monday’s meeting. The working group is also yet to decide on two new teams for the IPL.
No need for players to sign undertaking now
Current and former Indian cricketers will not be immediately required to sign ‘Conflict of Interest’ undertakings but they may have to do so in future, a top BCCI source said on Monday.
There was speculation that current and former players will also be asked to sign the undertakings, just like the BCCI members who have been asked to declare that they do not have ‘conflict of interest’ while holding functionary posts in their respective cricket associations. But, a source in the BCCI said that there was no such move to immediately ask the current and former players to make this declaration.
“No players have yet been sent any ‘No Conflict of Interest’ undertaking yet. This is right now only mailed for presidents and secretaries of the state associations. After that it will be for the various committee,” a member of the BCCI Working Group set up to examine the Lodha Committee verdict said on condition of anonymity.
“Gradually we will bring everyone but that’s a long way to go. As of now, no player or ex player has been sent any document. It is still some time before players are bought in the ambit,” he added, without giving any time frame as to when the players could be asked to sign the undertaking.
( Source : PTI )
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