BCCI to reconsider IMG axe

New Delhi

Sept. 1: The decision to snap ties with event management company IMG has split the Indian cricket board right down the middle.
“The (BCCI) secretary’s letter does not mean that we have totally severed ties with the IMG. We are willing to settle and reconsider... it is quite possible that we could still retain their services for next year,” Indian Premier League governing council member Niranjan Shah told this newspaper on Tuesday, in a climbdown from the board’s earlier stand.
Shah’s statement is crucial considering just days earlier, his colleague and BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan had shot off a letter to IMG vice-president Andrew Wildblood explaining that the company’s fees for conducting and managing the IPL-2 in South Africa was “disproportionate to the service rendered”.
The issue will be discussed in greater detail at the IPL governing council meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday, but it is evident that Srinivasan finds himself alienated on the issue.
A board administrative source said that the BCCI had no option but to kiss and make up with the international event management company.
“We have been approached by other Indian companies like Globosport and Wizcraft, but they too know they cannot organise events of such magnitude as efficiently as IMG. In fact, they conceptualised the South Africa edition in just 22 days,” the source said.
IMG played a key role in putting together IPL-2 and implementing it, including drafting the Indian and foreign players’ contracts, putting the logistics in place and managing the day-to-day running of the tournament.
The BCCI claimed to have paid IMG Rs 42.92 crores for the inaugural IPL edition, with the fee for the second edition said to be around Rs 33 crores.
One of the major reasons for BCCI’s climbdown is the legal implications it could face if the company decides to take the Board to court.
Since the IMG’s initial contract, which was signed in September 2007, stipulates a commission-based payment of 10 per cent of the board’s revenue — subsequently negotiated to a fixed retainer payment — the IMG can contest BCCI’s ‘unilateral’ termination of contract.
Srinivasan, on the day, continued to stick to his stand. Told about Shah’s comments, the Chennai Super Kings owner said; “I’m just following the decision of the working committee. I don’t have any personal agenda.”
Many insiders, on the contrary, feel that the issue is more to do with the power struggle within the board and less due to money.
The development over the past few days is being interpreted as an attempt to clip IPL chairman Lalit Modi’s wings —largely instrumental in roping in the services of IMG for the first two editions of the cash-rich event — and conduct and control of the league.