The Hindu : Sport : Access to dug-outs for team owners

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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Access to dug-outs for team owners

Mumbai: A day after Shah Rukh Khan was barred entry to his team’s dressing room, the Indian Premier League authorities issued fresh guidelines which has cleared the deck for the presence of a franchise owner in the team dug-out for the Twenty20 matches.

IPL Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi announced that the organisers would issue an all-area accreditation badge to one member of each of the eight team franchisees, following the ejection of Shah Rukh from the dug-out by the Anti Corruption and Security Unit officials of the International Cricket Council.

While defending the decision of the ACSU officials to ask the film star to vacate the dug-out during the IPL tie against Chennai Super Kings at the Eden Gardens, Modi said suitable measures would be taken to avoid a repeat of this incident.

“There have been reports in the media about denial of a team owner access to the dug out and dressing room. The IPL is conducted as per the rules and regulations of the ICC whose ACSU officials were just doing the job entrusted,” Modi said.

“They go strictly by the colour code. A red badge issued by the ACSU, on approval of the team manager, will help the person holding it access to all areas,” he said.

“This is what we intend to do by giving each of the team owners one such badge each. They do have the right to sit with the players in the dug outs and dressing rooms,” Modi told a media conference here.

Teething trouble

Modi said since this was the first year of the IPL they were still learning the ropes. “If we make mistakes we are willing to set them right. This is the first year of IPL.”

“We had already provided such badges to Preity Zinta (owner of Punjab King’s XI) and Vijay Mallya (owner of Bangalore’s Royal Challengers) as we had received such a request from them in advance,” Modi explained.

“The team owners have the right to be with the team at all times. They are very much part of the team’s strategies,” he added.

Modi also said that each team, in addition, would get four visitor’s passes with the condition that the holder of that badge, one at a time, can sit with the team members during the match for a maximum of 15 minutes.

“After the usage (of the temporary badge) it must be returned to the manager who has issued it,” he said.

The IPL Chairman also said that, in future, children of team members, including support staff, would not be allowed to enter the teams’ dug-outs or dressing rooms during a match. — PTI

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