BCCI President Shashank Manohar’s role under scanner
Has the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) gone out of its way to accommodate the Kochi franchisee, which, on December 5, became the second new team to play in Indian Premier League’s (IPL’s) season-4? This question has become pertinent because of two charges being levelled against the BCCI and its President, Shashank Manohar.
The first is that Manohar personally intervened to allow ‘more-than-a-fair’ chance to Kochi, owned by a consortium and initially supported by former minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor, to re-enter the bidding process for the auction of two new IPL teams in March 2010.
The second relates to the fact that while the BCCI summarily sacked two teams, Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab, from playing in IPL 4, as they changed their shareholding pattern without informing the IPL Governing Council, it gave several chances and over eight months to Kochi to finalise its new shareholding pattern and become one of the two new franchisees.
Lalit Modi, the suspended IPL Commissioner, has accused that it was Manohar, and not himself, who had rigged the auction for the two new IPL teams in March 2010. In his 150-page reply to the first showcause notice (dated 26 April, 2010) issued by the BCCI to him, Modi detailed out the events that led to the franchise being awarded to the Kochi consortium.
The deadline for submission of bids for the two additional teams in the first auction was 5 pm on March 5. By this time, only two bids were received from Videocon Group and Adani Group. But on 5 th night and 6 th morning, Modi said he received several calls from Tharoor and his secretary, Jacob, with a request that a third bid (for Kochi) should be accepted.
More From This Section
“I informed him (Tharoor) that the deadline for submission of bids had expired… and I had no authority to extend time,” revealed Modi in his reply, which contains thousands of pages as annexure. Tharoor then spoke to Manohar and “that the two spoke to each other on several occasions was independently conveyed to me by both.”
Later, according to Modi, at 7 pm on March 6, as he and Manohar sat together at Mumbai’s Four Seasons Hotel, the Kochi bid arrived. When Modi declined to accept it, Manohar insisted that he was the president and, hence, he could direct Modi to accept the bid.
Modi’s reply added since he “did not want to create a public confrontation/scene, I purported to do what the president directed.” Manohar also revealed that “he would cancel the whole tender process the next day by persuading the (IPL) Governing Council that the condition(s) of net worth ($1 billion for any bidder) and bank guarantee ($100 million to be given along with the bid) were extremely onerous and that the bid deserved to be cancelled.”
Manohar, as per Modi’s version of the event, proceeded to ensure this objective. “It is common knowledge that the president does not carry a mobile phone…. He, therefore, used my phone and spoke to Abhijit Sarkar of Sahara (Group) and Shailesh Gupta of the Jagran Group and asked them to immediately send letters complaining about the bid conducted.”
The next morning, at the meeting of the council at the same hotel, Manohar used the two letters to cancel the bids in the first auction. At its meeting on March 7, the council asked for a second round of a more ‘transparent’ bidding for the two new teams to be held on March 21.
This, alleged Modi, gave Kochi another chance to enter the auction process. In the second round, the Sahara Group and Kochi consortium won the bids for the two new franchisees.
In a telephonic conversation, Manohar said the matter was before a BCCI disciplinary committee and, hence, he would not like to comment on the issue. However, sources close to BCCI contend that as mentioned in the board’s showcause notice, it was Modi who had rigged the first round of the auction to help Videocon and Adani.
These sources add that the two clauses (net worth and bank guarantee) were aimed to prevent any other bids, except from Videocon and Adani. So, the council got rid of the clauses, received the bids at 10 am on March 21 at the ITC Park Sheraton Hotel in Chennai, and announced the winners at the same time. The second round received more than two bids.
However, Manohar’s critics are still perturbed about how the BCCI cancelled two franchisees without giving them much time to explain their stance, while allowing several extensions to Kochi. The fact that both Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI have been given a reprieve by courts, which technically gives them a window of opportunity to play in season-4, may be an indication that the BCCI acted in a hurry to get rid of the two franchisees, whose owners are related to Modi.