CHENNAI: Despite signing multi-million dollar deals through IPL and media rights, the BCCI is yet to release the sum it owes to the state associations. While sending funds to the state associations was stopped two years ago on the directives of the Supreme Court for not complying with Lodha panel recommendations, this impasse has led to some of the state units compromising on players’ priorities.
Each state unit gets a subsidy from the BCCI and a portion of the money earned through media rights.
Though the CoA has not stopped releasing funds for hosting tournaments, not getting the media rights fund has affected states in different ways, with many of them trying to cut down expenses.
For instance, for the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy held simultaneously in Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Vadodara, the BCCI has only released Rs 1 lakh for each match, while the overall expenses come close to Rs 3 lakh.
This includes food and accommodation, team bus, ambulance, expenditure of match officials and anti-corruption unit, which the staging association has to bear from the fund the BCCI releases.
Because the amount has come down from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 1 lakh, the host associations are unable to provide certain comforts they used to. Notable among these is the disappearance of AC coaches used to ferry teams from the hotel to the ground.
“The BCCI has provided Rs 1 lakh for each match. But it is not even half of what’s required if you look at the expenses and the facilities which we have to provide. This comes to around Rs 3 lakh per match. But since the board has not released the media rights money, state units are forced to spend out of their own pockets. Some of the teams in Chennai are using non-AC buses for local transportation. Bengal and Rajasthan are using AC buses because their state associations are paying for them,” an official in the know told Express.
The weather in Chennai has been unusually pleasant but some of the teams still need to take a long journey, especially for matches at SSN College and TI Cycles grounds, which are on the outskirts. This situation is unlikely to change as those in the BCCI corridors revealed unless the AGM is conducted and a new regime takes over, the funds state won’t change.
“Even earlier, the state units never used to get the full money while hosting. But they never used to incur losses because the media rights money was compensating for it. Because this has not been released for two years, it is natural for the state units to employ some cost-cutting measures,” an official said.
(With inputs from Ayantan Chowdhury)