Shashank Manohar's actions will result in Rs 1,000 crore loss for BCCI, claims ex-CBI director in PIL

Chennai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will stand to lose over Rs 1,000 crore over the next eight years, said a PIL filed in the Madras High Court. The PIL, filed by former CBI director RK Raghavan, seeks to restrain the Indian cricket board and its current chairman Shashank Manohar from effecting any changes to the revenue sharing model in place at the International Cricket Council (ICC). The PIL said that Manohar’s “unilateral offer” of a six per cent cut in the revenue sharing model in place would mean that the board receives at least Rs 1,000 crore less. The BCCI is currently entitled to 21 per cent of the ICC’s gross revenue for the broadcast cycle between 2015 and 2023. [caption id=“attachment_2736824” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image. Getty Images[/caption] The PIL quoted figures based on newspaper reports and details furnished by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), a member of BCCI. However, when the matter came up before a bench comprising chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and justice S Vaidyanathan, the judges questioned whether the petition could be entertained as a PIL since it was a private agreement between two parties. The bench then asked the counsel for the petitioners whether he would like to withdraw the petition or want the court to pass orders. After the counsel said he would get instruction from his client, the bench posted the mater to April 20. According to the former CBI director, broadcast revenues at ICC were estimated to be in the range of $900-925 million for 2007-15, and sponsorship revenue was estimated to be between $600-650 million for the same period. He also said that the media rights income for 2015-23 has fetched $1.9 billion and broadcast rights for the cycle have more than doubled from the previous cycle. He submitted that the sum total revenue for the cycle 2015-23 will exceed $2.5 billion, or over Rs 16,750 crore. For its participation in ICC events, the BCCI is due 20.3 per cent of this sum, which works out to Rs 3,400 crore. India gets a larger share of the revenue as the Indian viewership market and sponsorship account for over 80 per cent of the revenue generated by world cricket. The PIL said that all members of the ICC had agreed in February 2014 to pay a percentage of ICC revenue to BCCI. The petitioner claimed that present BCCI chief Manohar, who took over as ICC chairman on 9 November, 2015, obtained a general body approval to negotiate a “downward revision” of BCCI’s revenues. The TNCA first wrote to BCCI complaining that the mandate given by its chief would result in a loss of more than Rs 3,000 crore to the board till 2031, the PIL claimed.