CAB fails to show papers at crucial IPL meeting!

Just as expected, the CAB top brass yet again played into the hands of the opposition, this time by making a fundamental blooper at today’s all-important Working Committee that was called to seek a breakthrough in the issue over Eden Garden’s right to host the IPL matches.

The meeting was called to brief the aggrieved members about the details of the IPL carnival and about how the entire Rs 10-crore booty is to be shared among all the members and the affiliated units.

Instead, Mukherjee & Co could neither assure the members of their due share from the IPL project (tickets and grants), nor could the administration produce necessary papers at the meeting about the CAB’s deal with the IPL governing body and with Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment. The franchisee, owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh, owns the Kolkata team that will be led by Sourav Ganguly.

Both Red Chillies and BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi had recently asked the CAB to pull up its socks and settle internal squabbles before the IPL carnival, or the venue would be shifted to Ahmedabad. Problems had cropped up after the CAB’s opposition members and a number of affiliated units raised protests claiming that the CAB isn’t going to share enough money and tickets with them.

At today’s meeting, CAB chief Prasun Mukherjee put up a brave face, rattling off the details and technicalities of the entire IPL blueprint.

However, some members at the 42-man meeting asked the CAB president to show them necessary papers that the CAB received from the BCCI and the IPL. Mukherjee reportedly turned down the request, as Surajit Naskar (member, YMCA) recalled, speaking to The Indian Express after the meeting: “The president gave us all a detailed overview of what the IPL project is about — the format, Eden’s share of matches, the money that the CAB is getting, and so on. But when I asked him to show us the papers related to the IPL, he refused. He claimed that it would be risky for the CAB officials to distribute the papers since aggrieved members could use the copies of the papers in filing a court case against the CAB. It makes no sense.”

Today’s embarrassment at the meeting apart, the Jagmohan Dalmiya-backed opposition to the CAB dispensation is going to step up the pressure at the Special General Meeting (SGM) called on February 26 at which the matter discussed with all the 121 affiliated units of the CAB.

For now, the CAB has decided to increase the IPL grant for the 94 Maidan clubs from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh each, while the amount of grant for the 18 districts remains at Rs 1 lakh. However, key member of the opposition, former CAB assistant secretary Biswarup Dey, reckons that the clubs and districts — totalling 121 units — should be given about Rs 6 lakh each, out of the CAB’s IPL booty of Rs 10 crore.

“At the SGM, we will recommend that the CAB should give about Rs 6 lakh to each of the affiliated units, and adopt a 70-30 or likewise revenue sharing basis, just like the BCCI. The current amount of Rs 2 lakh has no basis. And this apart, imagine that at a meeting as important as today’s, the CAB simply couldn’t come up with a single scrap of paper to substantiate the IPL deal. We will put more pressure on them, come February 26,” said Dey.