Recent IPL controversy has stirred up hot debates and discussions in terms of Owner composition, money involved and personal interests of various people associated with the same. IPL was becoming huge, with no one having the power or rights to know what’s going behind, teams selling for as costly as Rs 1300 Crores and advertisers making furore of the unprecedented high advertising costs.
The brand was burgeoning but still I had doubts in my mind- what’s the future of this brand which has gone international and has gain respect for India on an international level. What if there are some bad things happening behind-the-scenes and what if those gets exposed?
With the kind of money involved and clauses which said that owner’s structure will not be disclosed, such type of controversy was inevitable. Let’s first understand what has happened-
Lalit Modi tweeted giving the details of Kochi Team’s owners’ internal structure and also tried to hint that Mr. Shashi Tharoor has better business in Kochi’s team as against being just a Mentor. His name was also linked with Sunanda Pushkar being a close friend of Tharoor. Modi also tweeted about certain personal questions he had in his mind like- “25% of Kochi team is given free to Rendezvous sports for life. The same equity is non-dilutable in perpetuity.What does that mean?”
These things didn’t go very well with Mr. Tharoor (who has a huge fan following on Twitter) and he replied back to Modi over Twitter. Questions were raised about other team’s internal stake holding structure and Modi’s personal associations with stakeholders.
After this incident Mr. Tharoor came up with his official statement on the IPL allegation. And then IT-raids at IPL office, questioning with Lalit Modi etc etc happened.
With power comes great responsibilities, an old saying but very true in this case.
IPL is powerful and with such a big thing which is like a black hole to suck money from everyone’s pockets, owners need to be more careful. Everyone knows that the true story would not be that clean, it simply can’t be. So its better we leave this BIG piggybank untouched, otherwise this big brand may turn into an ugly one leaving a bad mark on India’s face. Countries around the world are following this story closely and another ‘Satyam Saga’ kind of story may very well tarnish India’s image.
What’s your say on this?
Very true, Balaji. Either its the money or the fact that 4 other bombs didn’t explode :)
There is a good thing that has come out of this controversy.First IPL is finally being brought into the “Tax” net and this personal conflict between 2 powerful people has also ensured that all teams being transparent about ownership.This is a commercial enterprise and the IPL being exempt from tax was laughable.But lets not forget that this is a global Indian Brand which needs to be preserved.But this controversy would not affect it financially why,its simple,it is “Indian” premier league with 100% of the revenues coming from the viewing Indian public with increasing incomes,unless Indians lose interest in cricket or the economy of India tanks(both of which will never happen) the brand “IPL” is here to stay no matter what the controversy even if a bomb goes off during the IPL it would still not affect IPL.
My words have proven “prophetic” a bomb did go off and the IPL show is still on.All hail the IPL.