Opinion When team owners turn punters
The IPLs reputation took another major hit on Thursday with a second team owner confessing to have bet on matches during the tournament
The IPLs reputation took another major hit on Thursday with a second team owner confessing to have bet on matches during the tournament. Allegations that Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra gambled on their teams fortunes though,might have graver implications on the franchise format of the tournament itself,perhaps even more than the alleged spot-fixing by the three Rajasthan Royals players cooling their heels at Tihar.
Neither Gurunath nor Kundra has been implicated in the fixing saga as yet but there have been worrisome precedents of betting becoming synonymous with fixing in similar franchise leagues in both cricket as well as in football.
Allegations have been rife about Jaipur-based bookies,using benami fronts,buying stakes in Sri Lankan Premier League (SLPL) team. And there have been reports that Mohammad Ashraful,who recently confessed to have fixed matches,could have been coaxed and blackmailed into the crime by the owners of his franchise,Dhaka Gladiators during the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). Last year,betting mafias from Singapore were found to have bought football clubs in Europe and orchestrated results and other events surrounding matches.
The potential for influencing outcomes in the IPL only seems more enormous when you think about the comprehensive access owners like Gurunath and Kundra have to players and inside information regarding the team,and the supreme power they wield in the dug-outs. Not only can these owners flash their money and buy world-class cricketers in a flashy auction,they also can have the final say in picking who plays and who sits on the bench. Unlike those in-charge of national teams,they are not answerable to anyone for the decisions they take for their team,however manipulative they might seem. For them,running the team is a business and they are driven by profits and arent obliged to have the larger good of the game at heart.
Its high-time that the ownership patterns of franchises become more transparent. And the onus is on the BCCI to even do background checks on how the money spent to buy the teams has been sourced. Owners placing bets on their own teams is not only a worrying trend,it could well ring the death knell of the franchise format.
(Bharat is a principal correspondent based in Mumbai)
bharat.sundaresan expressindia.com
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