As tax worry looms, India may end up losing hosting rights for World Cup

With India standing to lose hosting rights for all international sporting events in the wake of visa denial to Pakistani shooters, cricket could also be hit albeit for other reason.

All future International Cricket Council (ICC) events may be forced to shift out of India because of strict tax laws.

This would leave the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) with one choice — Either bear huge tax liability or say no to hosting ICC World Cups and T20 World Cups.

DNA has reliably leant that though the situation has not gone out of BCCI's control, the board has got enough hints from ICC to sort out country's "tax problem" before bidding for 2021 World T20 and 2023 World Cup.

To put the situation in perspective, it was due to no tax exemption by the Central government that Formula One organisers decided to pull out of India after just three seasons (2011-2013).

During a meeting in Dubai recently, ICC made it clear that in 2016 World T20, a huge chunk of profit went into paying the taxes, as was necessitated by Indian tax laws. This time the world cricket body would not be in a position to repeat this mistake.

ICC gets tax exemption from member nations for conducting global events in any particular country. But in 2016, Indian government had refused to exempt the tax despite BCCI pulling all strings.

"If ICC goes ahead with 2021 T20 and 2023 World Cup in India, it may have to cough up more than Rs 150 crore in taxes only," said an official on Monday.

"Board (BCCI) has tried its best to reach out to the government. We have told ICC to wait till the next government is formed at the Centre before taking the talks further. But ICC chairman (Shashank Manohar) was categorical in saying that BCCI needs to pay all tax liabilities if talks with government do not yield any results after elections," said a BCCI office-bearer.

However, the official also shared how BCCI has an option of telling all its sponsors to bear the tax burden.

No Pakistan name in letter

BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary confirmed on Monday that ICC turned down any request of BCCI to ban Pakistan from the world body on the charges of terror links.

BCCI had only written a letter to the ICC raising concerns over security of the players and fans without specifying Pakistan name in particular. "The main concern raised by us was of security of players and the fans which the ICC has decided to look after," said Choudhary.

DNA had already written that the issue of security came up during Saturday's ICC board meeting, but not much time was spent on it.

The Indian cricket team is scheduled to play Pakistan at Manchester in the World Cup game on June 16. There have been calls within India to boycott the clash in the wake of the heightened tensions between the two countries following Pulwama terror attack.