Sahara Group might sue BCCI: Subrata Roy

Interview with chairman, Sahara India Pariwar

Subrata Roy, managing worker and chairman, Sahara India Pariwar, took everyone by surprise when he announced his company was pulling out of the Indian Premier League (IPL), saying the group would not rebid for its contract, ending December, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for sponsoring the national team. Edited excerpts from a telephonic interview with Surajeet Das Gupta:

Considering BCCI encashed your bank guarantees after they had earlier promised to go for arbitration on reducing the price you paid for the Pune franchise, will you take the matter to court?
I haven't thought about it but we might do that. I am disgusted with the way they have behaved with us.

Will you stay back in the IPL if N Srinivasan, the BCCI president, resigns?

I have told them I will not come back even if they give me the franchise free of cost.

Yes, Srinivasan is the main culprit; he does not have the maturity or leadership to run the organisation.

However, yes, I am open-minded about the decision we have taken if he is not there.

Do you think BCCI has been squeezing the IPL franchisees, as a result of which they cannot make money?
If the franchisees are weak and not financially healthy, the IPL, too, cannot be healthy.

I have been saying this repeatedly to the BCCI that their concern should not be only to make money from us.

Do you think something will come out of the match fixing and betting scandal which has hit the IPL?
I think this will help in cleaning up cricket and BCCI.