New Delhi:
Is there a conflict of interest if members of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) own teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL)?
Former BCCI president AC Muthiah has appealed to the Supreme Court to decide on the issue.
The BCCI is the parent body for everything cricket in India. The IPL Governing Council, which runs the billion-dollar league, is a sub-committee.
Current BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan owns the Chennai Super-Kings which will play Sunday's final against the Mumbai Indians.
The current government inquiry into the IPL includes examining allegations that relatives of cricket organizers and practitioners of power (politicians among them) got sweet deals.
On Thursday, BCCI President Shashank Manohar told NDTV that Srinivasan had sought permission from the BCCI to buy the Chennai franchise. Therefore, the deal was kosher.
However, Manohar then attacked IPL Chairman Lalit Modi for not revealing that his friends and family members are co-owners of at least three teams. Some might find it odd that the BCCI needed to be alerted about this. Modi's relationship with the people Manohar referred to has hardly been a secret- the media has reported widely on the issue for years; the owners in question have not sought to keep either their connection to Modi or their involvement with their teams under wraps.
Speaking to NDTV on Thursday, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, who is on the IPl's Governing council, admitted that conflict of interest is one of the problems that has dogged cricket's administrators for a while. He said that he wasn't entirely comfortable with his son - actor Saif Ali Khan- bidding for the Pune team last month. Khan was not successful.