IPL auctions: Not just a playground for rich to throw money

Revelations of the IPL probe panel committee’s report to the Supreme Court may have put the Indian Premier League under a cloud of doubt with allegations of spot-fixing, but there was no sign of gloom felt during day one of the player auctions in Bangalore.

Yuvraj Singh (Rs 14 crore) and Dinesh Karthik (Rs 12.5 crore) were just two of the money-spinning purchases on a day which saw some of the biggest names in cricket snapped up by IPL franchises — included Chennai Super Kings, the team which is associated with Gurunath Meiyappan — who allegedly passed on information to bookies and is the son-in-law of BCCI chief N Srinivasan.

With so many questions being raised over the governance of the sport and the league in particular, one may be forgiven for thinking that it was obscene to see so much money being thrown around.

Kings XI Punjab co-owner Ness Wadia was joined in a discussion on CNN-IBN by lawyer and AAP member Rahul Mehra, Supreme Court lawyer Ranjit Kumar, ESPN Cricinfo’s Gaurav Kalra and senior journalist Pradeep Magazine — and he said that while it may seem so, the IPL is not a cozy club which rich owners treat as their playground.

“I admit I’m fortunate enough to have been born in a wealthy family and I do think some players get paid a lot. Owners do get carried away at times but as for the argument of us treating it (the IPL) like a playground — I can say that we’ve also promoted a lot of youngsters and the sport itself.”

Kings XI Punjab have also had their fair share of controversy related to tax payments and Wadia was honest enough to admit that everything is not smooth in the IPL: “If you ask us to show profits, then sure we can. I agree some things have to change but if some people do something wrong, it doesn’t mean the rest of us are wrong too. About fixing, there were 500 players on sale today. These guys come from nowhere – if 5% make such mistakes then the rest are not. Eventually sport has to come first and foremost and I’m sure law will take it’s course.”

Wadia also denied ever having paid any player under the table but he had heard rumours about it.

AAP member Mehra, however, was more critical of the IPL, saying that everything about it was wrong: “It’s not the Indian Premier League, it’s the Indian fixing league. It is a den of all illegal activities. You have spot/match-fixing and owners having hands in the till. There is underworld involvement — with names which have been documented by the Mudgal report. I can assume each one of us is helpless — but surely the judiciary is not helpless. Why do the courts not take action against this den of illegal activities?”

But senior Supreme Court lawyer Kumar argued against Mehra’s point, saying that the Mudgal committee was made by the judiciary in the first place. And about everyone remaining silent over the issue, Kumar said that it was normal procedure that people don’t comment on something that is sub-judice.

The bigger point however, was the chain reaction such a controversy brings. A team official is tainted – leading to a few players and eventually the team and the league. It was a similar case in the Italian football league the Serie A — where a match-fixing scandal saw 29-time champions Juventus being relegated to the second division. The scandal mainly involved team officials asking for particular referees for their matches — but would it have made sense to suspend the whole league for a year?

Mehra certainly wants to see such a big step taken: “The BCCI has shown that they cannot regulate themselves and they don’t come under the RTI. Nothing can catch them. They have failed in this since the match-fixing scandal of 2000. Suspend IPL… why not?”

Pradeep Magazine backed the argument up by saying that the entire IPL product is tainted: “When there are so many allegations year after year the entire product gets tainted. If it has to survive, action has to be taken against players, teams and officials. I agree with Ness that he is businessman and bought something which is a BCCI run product but they have to be accountable.”

Many would argue that suspending the whole league would be unfair upon those who haven’t done anything wrong. And Ranjit Kumar sees a temporary suspension as the only solution: “If there is a person who has been named in the Mudgal report and is supposed to be tainted — he or the team should not have been allowed to participate — interim suspension till decision on report comes. That doesn’t mean whole IPL should be suspended. You can’t use the same brush to taint everybody.”