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Cleansing Act: The Lodha panel report goes a long way in addressing the steps to clean up IPL

The IPL spot-fixing scandal in 2013 caught the BCCI napping. Even as it banned three accused Rajasthan Royals’ players, investigations revealed that Gurunath Meiyappan of the Chennai Super Kings and Raj Kundra of Royals were involved in illegal betting. The BCCI failed to act against the culprits, forcing the Supreme Court to step in. The SC-appointed Lodha panel has now banned the two individuals for life and suspended their respective teams for two years.

Dangerous liaisons between sport and corruption are hardly a new phenomenon. They’re as old as organised competition and human greed. The Black Sox scandal that rocked baseball in the United States happened nearly a century ago. It was less than a decade back that Juventus, beaten finalists in the Champions League last season, were relegated to Serie B for their involvement in a match-fixing scandal. Yet, when people talk of Major League Baseball or Italian football, it isn’t with the disdainful sneer that frequently accompanies any reference to the Indian Premier League these days.

The reason for that disenchantment with the IPL is quite simple. It took the Supreme Court, a body that should ideally be dealing with matters of greater import than sport, to bring about some resolution in the IPL spot-fixing case. In the case of Serie A, there was little hesitation in handing down harsh punishments, even if one of the clubs affected, Juventus, was the most successful in the league’s history. One of the players banned in the Black Sox scandal was Shoeless Joe Jackson, a legend of the game.

The less said about the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s response to the breaking story in May 2013, the better. A handful of players considered expendable – remember that Sreesanth hadn’t played for India since 2011 – were offered up as sacrificial lambs, taken to court with faces covered in black cloth as though they were neighbourhood burglars. The bigger culprits only had to deal with a BCCI-appointed probe panel. That was such an eyewash that a couple of board officials – those with spine and conscience still intact – resigned even before it was asked to submit its sanitised and nonsensical findings. It was those ‘clean chits’ that ultimately forced the courts to step in.

What now? The Lodha Committee’s findings have pointed the finger squarely at both franchisees, especially at the manner in which they refused to acknowledge that senior team officials had slipped up. No one apart from their families and friends cares what happens to Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra, but hundreds of thousands of fans have been left despondent by the decision to suspend two of the best supported teams in the league for two seasons.

The BCCI response, till now, has been a media release that says they’ll study the panel’s findings and chart a suitable course of action. An appeal, even if the two franchisees opt for that, is unlikely to succeed given that we were told the Lodha panel’s findings would be ‘final and binding’. Unless the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals can prove that the path of natural justice was subverted, an appeal may not even be admitted.

The new dispensation in the BCCI, with its secretary and BJP MP Anurag Thakur to the fore, has spoken several times in the recent past of this being a new era, of transparency rather than opacity being the key word. This seismic blow to the IPL offers us the first opportunity to see whether they can walk that talk.

Unlike some in Indian cricket administration in the past, Thakur is very much a new-generation politician. “We have nothing to hide,” he told this columnist a month ago.
The implication behind that statement was clear. The N Srinivasan regime, which presided over the spot-fixing scandal, hadn’t done the board or its reputation any favour. Yet, what can the new brooms achieve that their predecessors couldn’t?

You shouldn’t hold your breath. As long as Indian cricket remains a plaything of politicians and others hankering for power, change is unlikely to be anything other than cosmetic.
You get lip service about commitment to the game from most officials, senior and junior, but when it comes down to it, these are the same people who would rather vote for Sharad Pawar than Ajit Wadekar, architect of India’s first memorable Test victories abroad.

Feudal power structures

The elections every September are such sordid affairs that Caligula would have been proud. There was the instance a decade ago where an incumbent president was able to divert four votes his way, including a casting one. If the average cricket lover is to have any kind of faith in the administration, those outdated and feudal power structures need to change. And professionals, rather than ‘enthusiasts’, need to be heading these bodies.

Richard Nixon was the US president that started the process of normalising relations with China, and withdrawing troops from Vietnam. But mention the name now, and all you’ll hear is Watergate.

Sadly, the Lodha Committee’s findings, which run to nearly 15,000 words, have ensured that the Srinivasan era will be remembered primarily for this scandal, which has punctured a massive hole in an enterprise that was once the BCCI’s pride and joy.

The positive changes that Srinivasan and friends brought about will be relegated to the background. Most notable among them was the pension scheme for former players, those that gave up the best years of their lives at a time when playing fees were desultory at best. Facilities inside stadiums improved a great deal, and India toured England for a five-Test series for the first time in more than half a century.

It wasn’t just Srinivasan either. India Cements, whose association with Indian cricket goes back decades before the creation of Chennai Super Kings, have been one of the biggest patrons of the sport.

In the days before cricket was awash with IPL money, contracts to play for their teams in the Chennai league were often the difference between players staying in cricket and leaving for pastures greener.

None of that counts for much now. The IPL is looked at with suspicious eyes, and the BCCI equally so for having allowed things to reach such a pass. The transparency that Thakur speaks of is what’s most needed. But words alone will achieve nothing. You can’t fix this mess in a jiffy, the way you could amend Meiyappan’s Twitter profile. Root-and-branch change is what Indian cricket needs, but for that to happen, many of those on the topmost perches would need to step down. You can’t have amateurs, enthusiastic or otherwise, running a professional sport.

(The writer is Editor-in-Chief,Wisden India)

Men who made a mess of it

LALIT MODI

Original villain of the piece. The jet-setting, cocky, brash administrator was the cynosure as the IPL, which he executed, became a mega hit. But it was built on weak foundation and in no time, he became a hero to zero. Rules had been bent, financial transactions were shady and when he took on the then central government, he became a persona non grata.

MEIYAPPAN

Referred to as a ‘mere enthusiast’ by N Srinivasan, Meiyappan eventually spelt the doom for the most successful IPL team. His betting, in direct violation of the IPL code, and his connection with known bookies was established beyond a reasonable doubt.

N SRINIVASAN

Though not as flamboyant and chest-thumping like Modi, the ICC Chairman gave two hoots to rules and regulations. He was in direct conflict of interest by owning an IPL team, for which he got the constitution of the BCCI tweaked, though he was part of the BCCI administration. He glossed over the misdeeds of Meiyappan, his son-in-law, and Kundra.

KUNDRA

London-based NRI’s behaviour was unbecoming of co-owner (holding 11.4 per cent of shares) of an IPL team. He placed bets on matches involving his own team – Rajasthan Royals -- and his argument that he was an NRI and so he could bet had no takers.

A league of controveries

2009: Then IPL commissioner Lalit Modi tweets disclosing the pattern of shares in Kochi Tuskers Kerala, forcing then Union minister Shashi Tharoor, a supporter of the team, to resign from his post. Tharoor’s deceased wife Sunanda Pushkar had 10 per cent sweat equity in the Kochi team

2010: A red-faced UPA government goes after Modi and his IPL financial dealings, forcing the BCCI to act against him

2011: Modi flees to London, citing threat to his life from underworld the same year; BCCI scraps Kochi Tuskers Kerala for violating IPL terms and agreements

2012: Deccan Chargers, the 2009 champions, terminated for violating financial commitments

2013: Pune Warriors go the Chargers’ way for not complying with financial agreements

 IPL in money terms

BROADCASTING TERMS

BCCI had sold the global media rights to World Sport Group in 2008 for 10 years for $1.03 b (Rs 5,232 cr). WSG, in turn, sold the broadcast rights for the Indian subcontinent to Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd (MSMPL) for $300 m for thefirst five years.

TITLE SPONSORS

The BCCI earned Rs 200 cr between 2008 and 2013 by sale of IPL title rights. Revenue almost doubled when Pepsi won the rights for five years from 2013 for Rs 396 cr.

Top Stars affected by Lodha report

Chennai Super kings
Suresh Raina, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Faf du Plessis. MS Dhoni

RajasthanRoyals
Shane Watson, Ajinkya Rahane, Steven Smith, James Faulkner, Tim Southee, Chris Morris.

Possible legal fallout of Justice Lodha panel report

 CSK and RR, and Meiyappan and Kundra, facing life ban, can challenge the order
before the SC

All the four can claim punishment prescribed against them is disproportionate under the rules and code

The “aggrieved” party can invoke writ jurisdiction, among others, and file fresh petition

SC while setting up three former SC judges’ panel, had already disposed of the civil
appeal of BCCI Vs Cricket Association of Bihar and two other appeals

“The order passed by the committee (Lodha panel) shall be final and binding upon BCCI and the parties concerned subject to the right of the aggrieved party seeking redress in appropriate judicial proceedings in accordance with law,” the SC had said on January 22.

The Lodha Panel is to decide fate of IPL C0O Sundar Raman, still being probed by a 2G-fame CBI officer Vivek Priyadarshi-led team.

 Three-member Lodha Committee is yet to make necessary recommendations to the BCCI for reforms in its practices and procedures and amendments in the memorandum of Association, Rules and Regulations.