The Hindu : Sport : BCCI forms panel to resolve telecast row

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Thursday, Feb 08, 2007
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BCCI forms panel to resolve telecast row

Principal Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Stung by the fallout of the cricket telecast dispute and the ordinance which made it mandatory for rights holders to share live feed of matches of national interest with the public broadcaster, Prasar Bharti, the BCCI has constituted a four-member committee to find an amicable solution.

The BCCI Vice-President, Shashank Manohar, will head the panel that will interact with the Government and Nimbus, the Indian cricket's rights owner, to arrive at a solution. "The talks are already on and we hope that the committee would soon find a solution to the whole tangle," said the Convener of the BCCI Media Committee, Rajiv Shukla.

The BCCI Vice-President, Lalit Modi, the Treasurer, N. Srinivasan, and the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) President, I. S. Bindra, are the other members of the committee, formed at the BCCI Working Committee meeting here on Wednesday.

The meeting was called to deliberate on the telecast row after Nimbus, which brought the telecast rights for close to Rs. 2,750 crore, first refused the share the live feed of the India-West Indies series with Prasar Bharti.

The matches were later telecast on Doordarshan with seven-minute delay following a Delhi High Court order.

"The Board thinks that people should not be deprived and the rights holders should not be affected. The BCCI understands its responsibility towards both the sides and it is better that a middle path is found," Mr. Shukla said.

Other issues

The Cricket Board has already initiated talks with the Government on the telecast issue with the BCCI President, Sharad Pawar, meeting the Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.

The BCCI secretary, Niranjan Shah, however, refused to comment on whether it would suffer financial losses in the event of finding a solution to the tangle.

The Working Committee also discussed the proposed performance-linked contract for the players and it hoped to put it in place before the World Cup. Mr. Shah said that the Indian team's tight schedule was the reason for the delay in working out some modalities. The contracts will be applicable with retrospective effect — from October, 2006.

The Board also decided to appoint Sanjay Jagdale, a current selector, and joint secretary, M.P. Pandove, as managers of the Indian team for the World Cup in the West Indies.

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