 The Indian cricket board has made a huge surprise by offering a compensation package
of $5 million to both the sides which had managed to reach the finals of the previous
season's IPL's finals; the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals.
The two sides had managed to qualify for the inaugural Champions League in 2008,
but could not participate, due to the cancellation of the tournament due to the
terrorists' attacks in the country.
This package has been offered to only the two sides, and not to any of the
other six teams that had qualified for the Champions League from Australia,
South Africa, Pakistan and England.
There is a rule in the contracts documents that says that there will be no
compensation which will be paid in case the tournament got cancelled, but if
the individual boards needed to pay out the respective teams, it could be carried
out.
Rather unsurprisingly, the Chennai Super Kings is owned by the India
Cements, which in turn is owned by N. Srinivasan. Srinivasan is the secretary
of the BCCI and also a part of the IPL and Champions League council, making
it easier for some of the critics to point out fingers at the whole deal.
The Champions League of 2008 was planned during the first week of December,
but had to be cancelled when the terrorists had attacked the city of Mumbai
on the 26th of November last year. The minimum participation fee for all the
sides was $500,000 and they were to share the prize money of $6 million, and
so the maximum a winner could have earned out of the tournament would have been
around $2.5 million.
While Lalit Modi confirmed this development, he refused to divulge any
further details on the issue.
Cricket Australia has also been considering a pay-out of some kind for
the teams that had missed out last time, Victoria and Western Australia,
but it is not expected to be in any region close to this!
Already the house is divided about the payout, with one division saying that
this could set a very bad precedent for the rest of the time. The concerned
official said, "They fear that other IPL franchises may demand similar
bailouts if such situations crop up again in the future, even during the IPL"
However, some of the others said that it only made sense to hand out the package.
He said, "The IPL's duty and obligation is towards its franchises and a
fruitful, long-term relationship. The IPL's promise to the franchises was that
if you qualify for the Champions League, you will play. But due to unfortunate
circumstances, that didn't happen last year and we had to honour that commitment
in the best manner possible."
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