Published: Aug 23, 2015, 04:12 PM (IST)
Edited: Aug 23, 2015, 04:12 PM (IST)
The Indian Premier League (IPL) Governing Council will be meeting a day before Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Working Committee meeting takes place on August 28 in Kolkata. The IPL GC will take place in Kolkata itself and will be the first meeting after the verdict on Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) was declared by the Supreme Court appointed Lodha Committee panel. The IPL GC will be headed by Chairman Rajiv Shukla, and will include BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary, former India skipper Sourav Ganguly and legal advisor Usha Nath Banerjee.
Earlier, BCCI’s Working Group, formed to study the verdict delivered by the panel presided by Justice Lodha in relation to the ‘Indian Premier League (IPL) 2013 spot-fixing scandal’, has made public its opinion of not terminating the suspended franchises of CSK and RR from the league for the next two years. The Lodha Panel suspended the two franchises for a period of two years in a landmark verdict that sent ripples across the cricket community on July 14.
Further in the report, a member of the working group is said to have made mention the alternative option of inviting bids for two new franchises in the league, with the players from both sides being put up for auction in what could be the most logical option. The member however described the first option — that of continuing the franchises under new managements — as the safest option at the management.
A majority of the working group members however, did not receive the option of two new franchises favourably, stating the complication of the tournament in the year 2018 and beyond as the primary reason. Given the fact that the broadcasting rights for the IPL will expire at the end of the 2017 edition, legal issues could arise from this option.
No doubt our immediate priority is to ensure smooth conduct of IPL 2016. But we also need to keep future in mind. Most stakeholders expressed that the IPL model works best with eight teams.
“But if the BCCI finances are going to take a major hit with the other options, we will be left with no option but to float tenders for adding two teams for a longer duration,” the working group member was quoted as saying.
The working group is to meet up one more time on August 28, before submitting its recommendations to the BCCI working committee. The board is currently debating on the ‘least disruptive’ way to pass the ownership to a new management, whether to invite new owners for the tainted franchises, or to run them under some other management system.
