Curtains for IPL Kochi?

It’s curtains for Kochi. The investors of the Indian Premier League team have decided to call it quits. One likely fall out of it could be a seven-team IPL from next year.

At a meeting held in Mumbai on Friday, the Kochi consortium members agreed to write to the Board of Control for Cricket in India to cancel the team. They might submit the letter on Monday or Tuesday.

The move comes two weeks before their deadline, given by the BCCI to set the team in order, expires. The Board, it may be recalled, had issued a 30-day notice to them stating that the team will stand terminated if they fail to form a company and put up a united front before the notice period ended. It has now emerged that the consortium members - investors and sweat equity holders — have failed to cobble together a united front.

It was not known if all the consortium members attended the Friday night meeting but most of the investors were present. What is known is that a key member of the Rendezvous Sports World Pvt Ltd (RWSPL), the holders of the controversial sweat equity, did not attend despite invites.

The consortium has decided that the investors will approach the BCCI lawyers on how to draft the letter. Their target at this stage, it seems, is to recover the money and bank guarantee submitted to the Board after winning the bid in March last year.

Initially, they had submitted $10 million (Rs 45 crore) - as part of the agreement — and then they had given a bank guarantee of Rs 153 crore, the 10 per cent of the team’s worth (Rs 1,533 crore).
Coincidentally, the BCCI has called for its governing council meeting on November 17. An immediate link to the two developments could not be established. However, it is certain that the council meeting has been called to explore the options of staging a seven-team championship next year.

“The meeting is to discuss and decide on the possibility of going ahead with seven teams,” confirmed a top BCCI official. But the point to note is that at this stage, a seven-team league is still in the realm of discussion.

The Kochi investors’ move is also aimed at avoiding last minute pressure from their adversaries. None of the Kochi members was willing to come on record but one RSWPL member said the meeting went off well. He would not discuss the plan to approach the BCCI.

Meanwhile, the governing council is set to cancel one of the decisions taken during Lalit Modi regime. Top of the agenda is to decide on IPL’s new global television, mobile and internet rights.

The global media rights were with World Sports Group and internet rights were ‘controversially’ allotted to Global Cricket Ventures, allegedly linked to Modi’s son-in-law Gaurav Burman.

As is well known, the BCCI is currently fighting a legal battle with WSG after cancelling the television rights given to them. None of the BCCI and IPL officials was willing to come on record on the matter, but sources in the Board say a decision on this is expected to be taken at the meeting.

The council is also expected to discuss the outcome of a meeting of the staging centres of the IPL. This meeting is scheduled for November 15 in Chennai. Centres, that hosted the IPL matches last year barring a few, have been called for the meeting.

Interestingly, the Kerala Cricket Association has also been invited to the meeting. Kerala is yet to host an IPL match but it could have if Team Kochi had survived. But now, it appears that is unlikely to happen. Among those invited are state associations of Andhra, Orissa, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bengal and Vidarbha.

Rajasthan Cricket Association and Punjab Cricket Association, which used to host the home matches of the banned Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab teams, have been left out. Even Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association, which hosted a couple of IPL games of Kings XI Punjab, has not got an invite.