A meeting of the IPL Governing Council scheduled for last week has not taken place. It has been learnt the meeting will happen on a yet undecided date, with a couple of points added to the original agenda of reviewing sponsorship deals. Chinese company Vivo is the IPL’s title sponsor. Association with Chinese firms is under scrutiny after unrest at the Tibet border.

“Taking note of the border skirmish that resulted in the martyrdom of our brave jawans, the IPL Governing Council has convened a meeting next week to review IPL’s various sponsorship deals,” it was tweeted from the official handle @IPL on June 19. 

Apart from Vivo, IPL has other Chinese companies associated with co-sponsors. The tweet did not mention a date, but it can be noted that a whole week and more has passed since. The BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and IPL Governing Council chairman Brijesh Patel were not available for comment on the meeting. The BCCI and Vivo signed a five-year contract in 2018 worth Rs 2199 crore, which gives the company title sponsorship right from 2018-22. If the contract is terminated before 2022, the BCCI may have to pay a hefty compensation.

Expecting the Covid-19 situation to improve, the BCCI had earlier said it wants to hold the IPL some time between September and November. In a letter to the state associations on June 10, Ganguly had stated the board is looking for an IPL window later this year, even if it means playing before empty stadia.

However, with no sign of improvement in various parts of the country, the BCCI or the IPL Governing Council is still to take decisive steps towards staging the event. Officials are still eyeing that September-November period, but the spike in the number of positive tests means they have not been able to start working in that direction. No IPL this year will result in a loss of around Rs 4000 crore for the BCCI, which will eventually affect everybody including international, domestic players and state associations.

Going by the BCCI constitution, secretary Jay Shah’s tenure reportedly got over on Tuesday. He completed six years in total as BCCI secretary and joint-secretary of the Gujarat Cricket Association. The constitution says administrators have to take a three-year cooling-off break after six successive years in a state unit and/or BCCI.

The rule also means that tenure of president Ganguly ends on July 27 and joint-secretary Jayesh George’s term gets over on September 23. The BCCI’s appeal at the Supreme Court seeking a revision of the rule is still to come up for hearing.

(Courtesy: The New Indian Express)