Preparations for IPL IV in full swing, franchises delighted with GC meeting
Twenty four hours prior to yesterday's IPL Governing Council meeting at the Bandra Kurla Complex, a senior logistics manager of one of the original IPL franchises was panicking. He was worried that the brand image and valuation of the billion-dollar league had taken a beating. In fact, he saidu00a0 that BCCI would be wrong in issuing a fresh tender, if and when the Kochi saga ends. That's because it's impossible to find a party willing to dish out $ 333 million, like the Kochi consortium did.
The feeling in the fraternity was disconcerting: What about Kochi? What about the auctions? How does the player retention work? Were some of the questions doing the rounds.
However, there was a major change among franchise officials when BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla declared 'preparations for IPL IV' open, yesterday.u00a0 "Preparations are in full swing, franchises are happy. We have to make IPL IV a big success ufffd that is the target," the Congressman said.
Amrit Mathur, Chief Operations Officer of Delhi Daredevils, breathed a sigh of relief during his chat with this paper. "We are all very relieved. The way aheadu00a0 is very clear; it now gives us a sense of when things have to happen, so we can plan accordingly since there is a time frame in place. We were not worried about things elsewhere. GMR Sports has its priorities right," he said.
Eighth team auction
With Kochi most likely to get dumped, it is learnt that Governing Council is planning to conduct an auction for the eighth team by December 15. "We cannot take a decision on Kochi till the Nov 27 deadline, but we are ready with the new auction plan. Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Mohali are among the cities doing rounds. Ahmedabad will definitely take part in the auction," said a BCCI official.
ADVERTISEMENT
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
