Two suspended Indian Premier League teams Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) have to pay participation fee Rs 72 crore and Rs 56 crore respectively for the 2016 and 2017 seasons despite their two years ban on participation in the World’s richest Twenty 20 cricket league.
The Indian Supreme Court appointed committee recommended BCCI to suspend the two teams after Gurunath Meiyappan, the former CSK team principal, who was found guilty of match fixing along with RR co-owner Raj Kundra during IPL matches.
N. Srinivasan-owned India Cements and Emerging Media (Jaipur IPL Cricket Pvt Ltd.) won the bid for Chennai and Jaipur in 2008 for $91 million and $67 million, respectively. All the eight franchise have been paying one tenth of their bid amounts each year and have to do so for a 10-year contractual period starting 2008, with the dollar conversion rate for that period fixed at Rs 40.
So, according to the deal now, CSK and RR have to pay the participation fee despite their suspension from the next two seasons. CSK have to pay Rs. 36 crore and Rs 28 crore for RR for two each year.
If the they fail to fill the bill they will be termed as “defaulters” by the IPL Governing Council.
“We will be sending an invoice to the two franchise owners whenever it’s due to. They have only been suspended for misconduct by their officials, and in order to maintain the franchise agreement for ten years, they have to pay to the BCCI the franchise participation money. Otherwise, they will be deemed as defaulters,” a senior BCCI official told the newspaper.
On Monday BCCI announced two new teams for 2016 and 2017 seasons to replace CSK and RR. Mobile company Intex won the bid for Rajkot for 16 crores while Sanjeev Goenka revives Pune’s IPL’s sojourn again as he won the bid for the Maharashtra city for 10 crores.