BCCI clears Kochi franchise

The Kochi franchise of the Indian Premier League got lucky for the fourth time on Sunday. In a major relief to its owners, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) allowed the franchise to participate in the 2011 season of the T20 tournament.

The inclusion of Kochi means at least eight teams will compete in the fourth edition of the IPL, set to start on April 8 next year.

Player auctions for the fourth season are scheduled for January 8-9.

The franchise had been in the news as BCCI had issued a notice asking it to resolve ownership issues and divulge all on the stakeholding pattern if it wished to continue in the IPL. Today, BCCI secretary N Srinivasan said the franchise would be included in IPL-4.

“The IPL governing council has confirmed that the Kochi franchisee had satisfactorily responded to the notice issued to them by the BCCI and decided that the franchisee, Kochi Cricket Pvt Ltd, would play in the IPL from 2011 onwards,” Srinivasan said in a statement. BCCI had deferred a decision to scrap the franchise on three earlier occasions, after issuing it notices to set its house in order.

Originally, IPL-4 it was to have 10 teams, and broadcasters and franchisees were expecting advertising and sponsorship revenues of over Rs 1,000 crore. However, BCCI then expelled two franchisees, Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab; the Royals have since got a court stay order.

BCCI today did not elaborate on whether these two teams would also be included in the tournament.

Satyajit Gaekwad of Rendezvous Sports World (RSW), one of the Kochi team owners, said the Gaekwad brothers (who own RSW) had brought down their stake. “We have reduced it from 26 per cent to 10 per cent,” he said. “Differences amongst owners are now things of the past. We had done everything to facilitate the team to survive. Earlier, we were consortium partners. Now, we are a family of IPL Kochi Pvt Ltd. We will have a Board meeting as soon as possible, maybe tonight or tomorrow, to decide the future course of action and team building. We are very sure that we will rise up to the expectations of the cricket fraternity of Kerala and India.”

The Kochi franchise has been embroiled for quite a while in controversies over its ownership. While initially there were issues with the sweat equity (ownership share given for hard work or contacts, as opposed to money put in) that Rendezvous Sports World and Sunanda Pushkar held in the franchise, the other investors had later asked Rendezvous to pay for the equity it held. Today, Gaekwad said that though Rendezvous had brought down its equity share to about 10 per cent, it was entirely sweat equity and not paid-up.

“Rendezvous has 10 per cent sweat equity and there is no question of five per cent paid-up,” he said.

Anchor Earth, Parinee Developers, Rosy Blue and Film Wave hold 74 per cent of the equity in the franchise. The Gaekwad brothers had got the sweat equity for services rendered in successfully bidding for the franchise. The consortium had bagged the franchise for $333 million (Rs 1,500 crore) in an auction in March this year.