Sunanda Pushkar blames mismanagement for Kochi’s fall
By CricketCountry Staff
Mumbai: Nov 9, 2011
Sunanda Pushkar, the wife of union minister Shashi Tharoor has for the first time broken her silence since the Kochi Tuskers Kerala controversy which occurred in April 2010, saying that she has nothing to do with the fall of the Indian Premier League franchise.
“Look, it wasn’t because of me. There was complete mismanagement in the team. In fact, we wanted to bring cricket to Kerala. It was a case of ‘too many cooks spoil the meal’. That is why it didn’t work out,” Pushkar was quoted by MiD DAY.
Sunanda was given free equity of close to 19 percent, valued at Rs. 70 crores in Rendezvous Sports World, the consortium which previously owned KTK.
She had later surrendered the sweat equity offered because of “deeply unpleasant” publicity surrounding her involvement with the IPL franchise.
Controversy-ridden IPL franchise Kochi Tuskers Kerala was slapped with a suspension notice for non-payment of bank guarantee by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) at its Annual General Meeting.
The consortium, which was mired in a bitter ownership dispute after its very inception, defaulted on a Rs 156 crore annual payment it was to make as bank guarantee despite reported reminders from the IPL authorities.
The decision to terminate Kochi franchise was taken at the BCCI’s Annual General Meeting here today, in which the new office bearers of the Board were also elected.