Sahara Group today defended its decision to snap sponsorship ties with the Cricket Board and withdraw from the IPL, saying the relationship between the two has become so strained that it could not be possible to continue any longer.
"The decision we took to end ties was not a bad one at all. We had enough of it. Any relationship does not break on one single issue only. We had a long relationship. It has to do with many issues and has happened continuously," Sahara Group chief Subroto Roy told a press conference here.
"There were so many genuine things we had but they (BCCI) did not give heed to such a small thing like opening the bid. They did not open the bid (when Sahara had submitted its bid for the first time). Rules were broken for other teams but we were not given natural justice," he said.
Roy said Sahara had approached the BCCI to settle the issues through arbitration and it had even proposed an arbitrator but the Cricket Board was not interested.
"We even approached the BCCI for arbitration and even proposed the name of the arbitrator," said Roy.
He said considering the number of matches reduced from the originally-proposed 94, Pune Warriors paid 25% more money to the Cricket Board for owning the franchisee.
"It was 94 matches calculation, the gate money to collection of advertisement money would have been 25% more. We have paid 25% more. Differential amount is 25% of the total amount," he said.
Roy said he would not want to blame anybody but he was snapping ties with the BCCI and pulling out Pune Warriors from the IPL as it involved emotional issues.
"Again without blaming anybody, I thought it would give us lot of happiness. It involved emotional issues. Let us put all this money in sports development in villages."