BCCI to take final call of Deccan Chargers tomorrow

Deccan Chargers IPL team, which rejected a bid of Rs 900 crore from Hyderabad-based finance firm PVP Venture Capitalists, is facing termination from the tournament, according to reports.

Chennai: The BCCI's top brass will be engaged in a series of meetings here tomorrow to take a final call on the future of the cash-strapped IPL team Deccan Chargers and also seek to make a couple of important amendments to its constitution.

As many as four meetings -- Special General Meeting, IPL Governing Council, Working Committee and Marketing Committee -- are scheduled for tomorrow during which amendments for a new rotational policy for the election of president and relaxation of the term of office-bearers could be passed. Both the amendments, if passed by three-fourth majority, would have long term implications in the functioning of the Board and could pave the way for a fresh innings for many of its stalwarts who have completed their terms. Apart from these amendments, the issue of Deccan Chargers will be the main agenda of the Working Committee meeting which has to find a way to resolve the financial crisis surrounding the beleaguered franchise. The Deccan Chargers' had surprisingly rejected the lone bid they received at the auction yesterday, throwing the future of the franchise into uncertainty. Deccan Chronicle Holdings, the owner of Deccan Chargers, received a bid of Rs 900 crore from PVP Ventures Limited, a Hyderabad-based company engaged in urban infrastructure and financing movies, but chose to reject it as it considered the price and terms unacceptable. The development brought the BCCI back into the picture and there are strong indications that the contract of Deccan Chargers could be terminated, unless the franchise resolves its financial problems by the 5pm deadline tomorrow. The BCCI has the option of either terminating the contract and floating a fresh tender for a new team or give the team to PVP Ventures Capital which had submitted the bid. The other option is to go for the sixth edition of the IPL next year with just eight teams, though that looks extremely unlikely. There are also indications that the consortium of banks, which had reportedly scuttled the bid, could agree to bail out Deccan Chargers by making the payments to the players. In that case, Deccan Chargers will be able to take part in the IPL next year but it would still have to resolve its financial problems at some stage. The Special General Meeting has been convened specifically to consider two proposals -- increase the tenure of BCCI officials and do away with the zonal system of electing presidents. Under the existing BCCI rules, no office bearer, barring the five vice-presidents, are allowed to recontest for the same post once they complete their three-year term. If this proposal is passed, it will give the BCCI the option to retain some of its competent officials despite their terms coming to an end. The second proposal seeks to do away with the existing policy of electing presidents through the zonal rotational policy. As per the existing rule, a president has to be from a particular zone whose turn it is by rotation to take over the presidency. The change sought to be made at the SGM is that the future presidential candidate may belong to any of the five zones, but only needs to be proposed and seconded by the zone whose turn it is. Though the BCCI officials did not spell out the reasons, it is widely perceived to be a move to pave the way for transfer of presidential powers to Arun Jaitley, who heads Delhi and District CA and is a senior BCCI vice president representing the North zone. As per the rotation policy, Jaitley needs to wait till North zone's turn comes, as it is East zone's turn to take over the presidency from incumbent N Srinivasan in 2014. The general notion is that presently there is no candidate in the East zone who is viewed by the majority of Board members as an ideal person to take over the reins of the richest sports body in the country. PTI