The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to replace Indian Premier League (IPL) Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi with a professional management team under a new chief executive officer. The management team would report to the governing council and IPL would function like a board-run company, where key decisions would be overseen and ratified in the council.
“We will remove Lalit Modi. It might happen on April 26, when the IPL governing council is meeting, or a bit later, and we also know he will fight back,” a top BCCI source told Business Standard, adding there was consensus among the governing council members of IPL on the new structure.
The move comes as Modi finds himself embroiled in a spate of controversies relating to his style of running IPL and allegations that his family and close associates have benefited from the tournament.
Several BCCI members have said that Modi ran IPL like a fiefdom, taking decisions on key issues, like the terms and conditions for bidding of the two new franchisees, without even consulting the other members.
“The documents were made without consulting the IPL governing council at all and we got letters from many prospective bidders that the conditions were very stiff,” said a BCCI member.
Currently, IPL is run by a 14-member governing council. While it has a chief executive officer in Sunder Rajan, his role is very limited.