IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla: No extension to be given to Pune and Gujarat
IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla announced that Pune and Gujarat will not be given automatic extension following the return of suspended CSK and RR next year even if it is decided to turn the IPL into a 10-team affair from the 11th edition. He also spoke about BCCI's stand against Pakistan.
“No extension is being given to both the teams (Pune and Gujarat), the agreement was only for two years,” Shukla told reporters in New Delhi. “Even if we make it a 10-team league, the two new teams would have to be freshly bid for, so they are not being given any extension.
“Next year, as per the Supreme Court order, the two (suspended) teams would be back,” Shukla added. “The issue of whether (it will be) eight or 10 teams will come up at the IPL Governing Council meeting. So far, the plan is to go ahead with eight teams. A 10-team league has to be endorsed by the Governing Council.”
Shukla spoke about a modified player retention policy, going into IPL-11. The original plan was to have a fresh auction after 10 seasons.
“We will have a mega auction, but the retention policy also needs to be decided,” he said. “The mega auction is not going to take place immediately. It will be just before the next IPL, so we have enough time to decide."
Kolkata Knight Riders CEO Venky Mysore had raised the topic of player retention.
“It will be a huge deviation if the BCCI says no to retention policy at this stage particularly,” he was quoted as saying by the Sportstar website. “Every franchise needs a sense of continuity and to do that it needs a connect to the city which it’s embraced in.
“The way you achieve continuity is by maintaining a core group, which you believe is core to the team. That translates into a retention strategy. This retention strategy happened since the very first edition, so now if you abandon it, nobody will allow that.”
Shukla also said the fresh IPL broadcast rights would be sold for a period of five years.
“There was an assessment that we should not go for the 10-year duration,” he said. “After five years, we don’t know what the quantum of the league would be, how big the league would be. The CoA (Committee of Administrators overseeing the running the BCCI) was in agreement of everything. They were sitting together, each decision (at Sunday’s IPL GC meeting) was taken unanimously.”
He also said that the title sponsorship of the IPL would be decided through e-auction, with the two-year deal with Vivo ending with the current season. "The issue (of e-auction) has been discussed,” Shukla said. “The IPL staff has been told to talk to the experts. It’s a segregated tender (digital/broadcast/mobile) for different zones, so it becomes difficult. But for the title sponsorship, we have decided to go for e-auction,” he added.
The senior official said the BCCI was in no mood to send the Indian team on a tour of Pakistan. Meanwhile, the PCB have sent a notice demanding compensation of USD 6.9 million from the BCCI for breaching the Memorandum of Understanding.
“They have sent a notice and we will give an appropriate response,” Shukla said. “We have had a consistent policy that we will play on each other’s soil. Pakistan’s security situation is not such where you can have a series on their soil. Only Zimbabwe has played a series and no other country is touring Pakistan because they are not being able to provide adequate security.
“First you make your venues such where you can provide foolproof security. And for India, the security concerns are even more. How can we risk our players?”
Shukla also made clear BCCI's stand on playing at neutral venues. “The two boards should agree,” he said.
Meanwhile, acting BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary noted that the Indian government's clearance was necessary for the BCCI to approve a bilateral series with Pakistan.
“I can assure you this is a subject on which the government has to accord permission,” Choudhary said. “The BCCI has already written to the government in March regarding our Futures Tours & Programmes (FTP). So unless we get permission from them, I can’t make a comment. Where it’s FTP between two countries, it’s a contract both will try to honour.”
