Court makes an example out of top cricket body
With the Supreme Court accepting the lodha panel's report and its recommendations on reforming the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the curtains have been drawn on the first phase of the clean-up process that was initiated after the Indian Premier league betting and spot-fixing scandal broke in 2013. Three cricketers were arrested at that time, and the Supreme Court had taken it upon itself to bring about large-scale changes in the functioning of the BCCI. This wasn't going to be an easy task, and as expected, the BCCI resisted any major change that would disturb its status quo. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court on Monday pushed ahead with its reforms agenda and has now given the Board six months to get its house in order. On the agenda is a new structural hierarchy for the BCCI, an age-cap for BCCI officials (which will affect heavyweights like Sharad Pawar and N Srinivasan), restrictions on serving bureaucrats and ministers from being on the BCCI's board, and strict guidelines for appointments of BCCI officials. It has also cleared the three-year cooling off period recommendation for high-ranking officials, and upheld the one-State-one-vote principle.
From the BCCI's point of view, it has had little choice but to accept the Supreme Court's orders especially since public opinion is not quite in its favour at this time — though it may still have a few stalling tricks up its sleeve. That said, if the BCCI is upset about the court getting into its territory and telling it how to run the show (one that it has managed quite successfully over the decades), it has only itself to blame. Apart from shunning transparency and letting the perception of corruption build up around it, the Board also did not fight smartly in court. It did not pick its battles well (in terms of engaging with the actual recommendations) and spent too much of its resources on the inane private versus public entity debate. Instead, the Board could have fought harder on the one-State-one-vote issue, which hurts some of its oldest members who will now have voting powers only on a rotational basis (as there is more than one cricket association from their State) as well as non-State members like the Railways who have been relegated to the position of associate members without voting rights. The only concession that the BCCI won was on the issue of advertising revenue, but that outside the lodha panel's ambit anyway.
In the long term, the impact of the lodha report will not only be felt at the BCCI but also at sporting associations across the country. like the BCCI, these have severe organisational problems but, unlike the BCCI, they haven't delivered any goodies for their sport or their players. Yet, if the BCCI, the country's richest and most powerful sporting body, could be disciplined by the court, it is only a matter of time before others are hauled up. Clearly, the Supreme Court has sought to make an example of the BCCI. Now, time will tell how well it works.