The BCCI has identified the IPL has source of all trouble and planning to launch a cleansing drive. Its Working Committee met at New Delhi on Monday and came up with a host of proposals.
The measures include financial disclosures by players and team owners to curbing the tournament’s entertainment quotient, putting a stop to cheerleaders and after-match parties. BCCI’s acting president Jagmohan Dalmiya has called it “Operation Clean-Up.” All these are proposals and not decisions.
The BCCI wants to curb corruption and remove “sleaze” in the IPL by enforcing a “strict code of conduct” for players, support staff and owners. Players will be required to reveal sources of their earnings, and owners will have to furnish details of payments and their contractual obligations with players and support staff.
Access to the players’ dug-out and dressing room will be tightened once again. Dalmiya said that team owners will be restricted from these areas during matches. Owners were allowed in the dug-out and dressing room during the first season in 2008, but following complaints had been prevented from entering those areas thereafter. They now have seating arrangements close to the dug-out. Dalmiya also said that “no selector will be allowed to get associated with any franchise in any capacity.” No member of India’s current selection panel is attached to any franchise, but former chief selector Kris Srikkanth was brand ambassador for the Chennai Super Kings for a period at the start of the IPL.
Players and support staff will need to provide their phone numbers to the BCCI before the IPL, and there will be a larger number of officials from the BCCI’s ACSU at grounds and hotels during the tournament.
The meeting saw some heated exchange between some Board members and former BCCI and PCA chief I S Bindra, who questioned the authority of Dalmiya. Bindra asked in what capacity was Dalmiya pronouncing Kundra's suspension and appointing Patel and Sawant as executive functionaries of the Board.
