The highly-successful Indian Premier league could have a new title sponsor in its next edition after beverage giant PepsiCo expressed its interest to terminate the association with the BCCI.
PepsiCo, which had bagged the title sponsorship contract till 2017 by paying a whopping `396 crore (USD 71.77 million), Keen to pull out since the game has been brought into disrepute in the wake of the spot-fixing scandal.
The company is now in talks with the BCCI to settle the issue. “BCCI and PepsiCo have had a longstanding cordial relationship and have been in discussions to work out a solution which addresses PepsiCo’s concerns. Both parties will share it when ready,” a brief joint statement issued by PepsiCo and BCCI said. Sources said the BCCI is in talks with all those interested in bagging the rights and get it transferred from Pepsi.
“They have shown a willingness to move out of the deal from this season because of their own interests and not because of disrepute and stuff. So they may not continue as the main sponsor,” a senior BCCI source said.
“Because they have the deal with them so we are not bothering them. We have a bank guarantee with us and hence can confiscate it, but we are not doing it. Whosoever will get the rights, we will help get him that guarantee, get it transferred from Pepsi,” the source said.
Indian Premier league chairman Rajeev Shukla said the Pepsi deal is “not a big issue” and the Board is in talks with other sponsors as well to settle the issue “amicably”.
“We are in talks with other sponsors as well, so the title deal with Pepsi is not that big an issue. They have certain points and we are going to settle them amicably in the next meeting,” Shukla said.
Pepsi wants to withdraw from the sponsorship because of the 2013 spot-fixing scandal that tarnished IPl’s reputation.
BCCI Working Committee meeting reconvened on Oct 18
The previously adjourned meeting of the BCCI’s all-powerful working committee has been reconvened on October 18 here and is set to be a crucial one with many issues confronting the Cricket Board.
The earlier Working Committee meeting of August 28 was adjourned sine die after deciding to seek the opinion of the Supreme Court on whether N Srinivasan could attend the meetings of the BCCI as the authorised representative of Tamil Nadu Cricket Association in view of the conflict of interest issue.
Manohar had announced setting up of an Ombudsman or Ethics Officer, among many other things, with a view to clean up the Board and make its working transparent in public domain.
Another major topic of discussion would be the roadmap for the conduct of the next edition of IPl after two teams — CSK and RR — were suspended for two years by the Supreme Court on the Justice lodha Committee’s recommendations in the wake of the 2013 spot-fixing and betting scandal.
The meeting would also fix the date of its AGM, which could not be convened before September end as per its own Memorandum of Rules and Regulations, after the annual reports of its secretary Anurag Thakur, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary and all its sub-committees are tabled and passed by the all-powerful group.
The incident of bottle throwing by a section of the irate crowd at Cuttack during the second Ind-SA T20 is also expected to come up for discussion. Manohar has already asked for a full report of the incident from Odisha Cricket Association.