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Indian Premier League: CAB unhappy with ticket allotment

Special Correspondent

CAB says that the 20 per cent of tickets allotted to it is not enough
Modi threatens to shift matches from Kolkata to Ahmedabad

Mumbai: The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) is unhappy over the 20 per cent allotment of tickets and sought clarification on the procedure of organising matches related to the Kolkata region franchisee, Red Chillies Entertainment Ltd., which had won the region for $75.09 million for 10 years.

CAB president, Prasun Mukherjee, in a letter to the BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, had expressed the association’s displeasure over the number of tickets (20 per cent of the Eden Gardens capacity) that has been allotted to it for the Indian Premier League matches.

Reacting to the letter, the IPL Governing Council Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi has told CAB that the Kolkata region matches may be shifted to Ahmedabad.

“What do you plan to do about this? We need immediate answers, or we will move the team out of Kolkata to Ahmedabad rightaway. You will only get 20 per cent tickets against all categories. If you want to call an EGM, then do so rightaway. We cannot, and will not, allow one city to derail the whole process,” was Modi’s reply.

Mukherjee, in his letter to Shah, said that three groups of people — the Clubs, 31,000 associate, honorary and life members and companies that have a running contract with the CAB — were getting affected by the 20 per cent allotment of tickets and that he feared litigation might follow from the last two categories.

“The escape clause, as I see it, is that these facilities are available as per the CAB Rules, under the following circumstances: (a) If the match is organised by the CAB (b) If the match is allotted to CAB by the BCCI. So far, I have taken the stand that (1) The matches are not being organised by the CAB, but by IPL/the franchisee company, in this case, the Red Chillies Entertainment Ltd. (2) The matches have not been allotted by the BCCI.

“I have consulted our legal advisers. Based on objections raised by certain members, they have the following queries: 1. The IPL is a body set up by the BCCI by amending its Constitution. Superintendence and control over the IPL, its affairs and finance rests with BCCI. Then, are we right in saying that the BCCI has nothing to do with the IPL-organised matches? If not through allotment by IPL/ BCCI, then in what manner did these matches come to Eden Gardens?

2. Are we correct in saying that CAB is not organising the matches? Then, who (IPL/Red Chillies) are the organisers? It should be kept in mind that to keep things right in the legal perspective, all correspondence/applications to different Govt. departments for various permissions and support and payment of charges etc. will have to be made by the organisers concerned.

3. It may be advisable to quickly bring in an amendment to the above CAB Rule by way of an addendum, that “None of these will, however, apply to games organised under the control of IPL, created by way of an amendment of the BCCI Constitution.

The CAB, which is eager to receive Rs. 10 crore from the IPL for the development of the game, also wants to know when it will receive the money and what the mechanism was while arriving at the equal figure of Rs. 10 crore for all staging associations since the amount paid for different venues by the franchisee companies are very different?

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