A MOVE finally made by the cosy club of IPL franchise owners on the chessboard. The gambit unleashed by Rajasthan Royals’s Raj Kundra asking for representation on the IPL Governing Council is significant for it provides a clue to the direction that at least seven of the franchisees may want to take in the future.
At the end of the day, it is all about protecting one’s interests and closing ranks against the interloper – in this case the BCCI. Lalit Modi championed the cause of the team owners, displayed unilateralism at the cost of undermining the board’s authority. That is perhaps why a cabal within the board led by the eighth franchisee – N Srinivasan, also board secretary and owner of Chennai Super Kings – continuously baited Modi and his arrogance. Franchise owners versus powerful vested interests within the board was part of the fabric of the neo cricket board which was trying to morph from being a non profit organisation into an association of persons engaged in the art of naked barefaced commerce.
When corporates enter a not for profit domain, the rules of engagement change rapidly as barriers blur and money making becomes the sole objective. That is what has happened to the cricket board over the last three seasons. Modi, himself industrialist K K Modi’s scion, led a different lifestyle and came with the baggage of a different mindset. A mindset of how to revolutionise cricket and dovetail all its peripheral activities with pure play commerce. This didn’t go down well with a lot of people in the board for they found that the seven franchise owners were completely in sync with Modi’s thinking and actions. All this they perceived was to the detriment of the board’s clout and influence. The franchise owners were never subservient to the board. They were hand in glove with Modi who was essentially a board wallah.
The board’s overarching authority was being crimped, Modi was playing to the gallery. When powerful people like Mukesh Ambani, Vijay Mallya, Shahrukh Khan and others were part of the franchise brigade, Modi was further emboldened to take the extra risk. With Kundra now ringing the battle cry that Vijay Mallya should be made a member of the IPL Governing Council as a franchisee representative, the franchise owners have thrown down the gauntlet at the BCCI. The clarion call is simple, its credo undiluted and undiminished – we are partners in this process and we need to have a say since we are key constitutents and stakeholders.
Believe me, the board will have to give in. Modi’s ultimate fantasy was to hijack the game from under the BCCI’s eyes. He was a dreamer. And he dreamt big. That is why he managed to architect the IPL in such a grandoise manner. He would have dreamt a scenario where the franchise owners ran the game in the country and took over state cricket associations. So Mumbai Indians would over time take over the Maharashtra Cricket Association, while Kolkata Knight Riders would take over Cricket Association of Bengal and so on. The game would be completely metamorphosed in its corporate avatar and the IPL would become the blue riband event of the domestic season.
For obvious reasons the board didn’t want this to happen. Power as they say flows from the barrell of the gun, in this case from the state associations which have votes. The BCCI works on the age old principle of vote bank politics. That is why Union rural development minister C P Joshi heads RCA, Sharad Pawar heads MCA, Arun Jaitley heads DDCA, Gujarat chief minister Narender Modi heads GCA, Laloo Prasad Yadav heads BCA, Dr Farooq Abdullah heads JKCA and so on. They derive their clout and influence through their respective state associations. So, they will not relent.
It is interesting that the IPL came out of Subhash Chandra’s ill fated ICL which very clearly had the proprietary template on this big idea. I was talking to former competition commissioner Vinod Dhall a couple of days back and he argued that if Competition Commission of India rules and regulations were as tough as the anti trust bodies in the US and EU then the BCCI could have been booked under abuse of dominance of power. He averred that the BCCI clearly misused its dominant status to bring ICL to heel and broke its back completely by not giving its official regulation. Moreover, it did not allow it use of its stadia since the staging associations were all part of the private club called BCCI.
The BCCI is a non transparent body and it has a lot to explain to the people of this country. Kundra has fired the first shot in what is going to be a long running joust between corporates making up the IPL and the BCCI office bearers. By proposing Mallya’s name, it is clear that Lalit Modi is behind this move. I asked Lalit Modi Wednesday what his next move will be. And once again I was dismayed to hear quietude – nothing yet – was the cryptic response. So, will Modi use the powerful franchise owners to fight his battles? Clearly the answer is in the affirmative. In the changing equations since Modi’s suspension, it is now important to see how far the franchise owners ex-Super Kings are willing to go to back Modi.
In any case, you cannot run the Indian Premier League without carrying the aspirations of the team owners along. They must have a say with or without Modi, after all they have along with the suspended IPL czar built a robust business.
