Rajasthan Royals

The season one IPL champions Rajasthan Royals along with Kings XI Punjab were booted out of IPL recently by BCCI. The reason given was for violating shareholding and ownership patterns. The traumatized team owners promised to take the fight to the courts. And Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty told that they were too stunned even to react! The Kochi IPL franchise too had just been given 10 days for getting their documents and money in place else their contract will also be terminated.

Rajasthan owner Raj Kundra already had said that it’s unfair as they had even not been given a show cause notice and he will take the BCCI to the court. And now Manoj Badale, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, has said that the team tried to provide all information which had been asked but we were not given a chance to defend ourselves. “It seems surprising to us that these issues, all of which were communicated, all of which were documented for the past three years, are suddenly brought up when there is regime change as opposed to being brought up in time” he said. He met with BCCI president Shashank Manohar last week and was told that the team will be treated fairly. He did not disclose any other details of the meeting to the media labelling it as private.

Regarding the taking of legal action against BCCI Badale told leading news channel that in his experience these things get resolved around a table and it is only if negotiations fail that legal action will be considered. He said ”We voluntarily chose to submit an enormous document with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board back in July 2009, which went into extraordinary detail about our ownership structure.”

Gilchrist on Tuesday also commented that the expulsion would affect the brand value of IPL. He said “It does have an impact on the IPL. The brand and overall competition in general. No doubt it came as a surprise. I hope there is still scope for discussion between the franchisees and the BCCI. Hopefully they will stay in the competition.” He also told that this move would produce an insecurity in all other franchises and will create a ripple effect.

The two franchises have started to consider their options already. Both teams legal groups are are studying BCCI’s decision which is nowhere in the IPL spirit of teamwork. And it is absolutely unfair. But, both franchises hope for some negotiations in the issue and look to settle it.

Tags: BCCI, Cricket, Indian Premier League, Indian Sports, IPL, Kings XI Punjab, KXIP, Manoj Badale, Raj Kundra, Rajasthan Royals, RR, Sports, Sports India