Reports | BCCI paid Emirates Cricket Board 100 crore to stage IPL 2020
The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was successfully staged across two and a half months in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and reports have now emerged that the BCCI paid the ECB INR 100 crore to stage the competition. IPL 2020 was the second instance of UAE staging the T20 bonanza.
The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was set to be played from March in front of packed crowds in India, but the Covid-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the BCCI’s works. The pandemic outbreak in India - and across the world - forced the BCCI to initially indefinitely postpone the IPL, and towards the months of June and July, the T20 extravaganza taking place in 2020 looked highly unlikely.
However, it was then the BCCI, led by Board President Sourav Ganguly, decided to strike a deal with officials of the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) to stage the IPL in the Middle-East. Having already once staged one leg of the tournament back in 2014, the ECB offered the BCCI grounds in UAE to stage the 13th edition of the IPL. Eventually, talks ensued and, together, the BCCI and ECB successfully hosted the entirety of the IPL across three venues - Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah - between September and November.
In what now comes as an interesting revelation, according to a Mumbai Mirror report, the BCCI apparently paid the ECB close to INR 100 crore to stage the T20 Bonanza. The exact figure is still a mystery, but it is believed that the board paid their Emirati counterparts close to a sum of 14 million dollars (nearly 100 crores) to host the IPL in UAE.
But while the sum, on the outside, seems astronomical, the circumstances around the tournament forced BCCI’s hands to take drastic measures. The BCCI, at one point, in the case of the IPL getting cancelled, were staring at a loss close to INR 4,000 crore, and thus the board left no stone unturned to ensure that the 13th edition of the competition took place. Aside from losing out on the money garnered from staging matches in the stadium, the board also took a hit in the title sponsorship rights as boiling political tension between India and China meant that incumbent sponsors VIVO had to be cut-off to accommodate a far less attractive option in the form of Dream11.
On the back of the IPL being successfully staged in UAE, it is now believed that the BCCI have also zeroed in on the Middle-East country as the back-up option to potentially host the Test series versus England, that is expected to take place in the early months of 2021.
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