Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals will be out of IPL till 2018 but will not be terminated .
Mumbai : The two franchises of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals – which are currently serving a two-year suspension recommended by the Supreme Court-appointed Justice R M Lodha committee for their involvement in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal – have escaped the proverbial axe and can stage a comeback to the cash-rich league in 2018. CSK has won the IPL twice while RR has won the T20 format once.
However, they will be out of IPL for good till 2018 and the BCCI will float tenders for two new teams to replace the suspended franchises during the years 2016 and 2017. This is the first step the BCCI has taken in resurrecting the controversy-riddled Indian Premier League. It is understood that the majority of the BCCI members were not too keen on termination of the two suspended IPL franchises.
With Sunday’s decision, the next two IPLs will be an eight-team affair. This essentially means that the league won’t have to be drastically recast and will not lose its glamour quotient. However, the BCCI did not clarify whether IPL will be a 10-team affair from 2018, when CSK and RR return to the fold. The board is also still to address concerns about finding slots for the players of the two banned franchises. In other words, there is no clarity whether we will get to see the likes of M S Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Rahul Dravid, Stuart Binny, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashish Nehra and Ravindra Jadeja play in the next two IPL editions.
According to sources, there are three options before the BCCI: the first scenario is that players of CSK and RR skip IPL matches for two years; the option 2 is that the players of the two suspended franchises are re-auctioned; the option 3 is that they will be transferred to new franchisees. It is also unclear whether the new franchises will be from Chennai and Jaipur. Responding to a query in this respect, IPL chairperson Rajiv Shukla said: “City preference is not there and the highest bidder will get to choose the place.” The Board has also scheduled its Annual General Meeting for November 9. The BCCI rules regarding Conflict of Interest and the amendments to the Rules and Regulations of the Board will be proposed for consideration at this AGM.
As per BCCI president Shashank Manohar’s declaration, expenditure in excess of Rs 25 lakh will also be put up on the board’s website. In a bid to bring in more transparency and accountability on financial fronts, the BCCI has also decided to update the names of all former players and umpires, who are receiving monthly pension from the parent body. The BCCI has also appointed Price Water House Cooper as the independent agency for auditing the utilisation of funds provided to the state associations. The Board also said it was also looking at reviving the National Cricket Academy and was already mulling an offer by the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board. The IPL Working Group comprises Shukla, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, former captain Sourav Ganguly and Treasurer Aniruddh Chaudhary.
CHINESE SPONSOR FOR IPL
Another major development is that US snacks and beverage major PepsiCo is on its way out as the title sponsor of the IPL. The board has awarded the IPL title sponsorship for the next two editions to Vivo, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer. Vivo has to furnish the Bank Guarantee in the next ten days. With that media speculation that e-commerce and payments major Paytm was expected to move in as the new sponsor has come to a naught. PepsiCo became title sponsors of the IPL in 2013 after they bid a whopping Rs 396.8 crore rupees for five seasons. Prior to Pepsi, DLF had paid Rs 200 crore to become the title sponsors of the tournament. It is not clear whether the sponsorship amount has been renegotiated with Vivo, which wants to establish its presence in India; the IPL will give it the springboard it needs. It is understood that Pepsi had raised concerns about ethics in the IPL tournament and had been in discussions with BCCI on how these concerns can be addressed. A business daily quoted Pepsi chairman Indra Nooyi as saying that the company will only associate with ethical and clean sporting properties. PepsiCo had earlier terminated its contract with ace golfer Tiger Woods during the sex scandal. It had also terminated its contract with singer Beyonce over controversies.
