BCCI unlikely to cut ties with IPL title sponsor VIVO
Collected
|| Desk Report ||
A senior official from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said on Wednesday that the board is unlikely to sever ties with Indian Premier League (IPL) title sponsors VIVO if the ‘exit clause’ favours the Chinese mobile phone company.
But the official didn’t reveal much about the event’s governing council meeting’s exact timetable.
The central government of India has slapped an embargo on 59 Chinese apps including the controversial app Tik ToK after the recent clashes along the ACL border areas on June 15 in eastern Ladakh, Kashmir.
Right after the 15 June incident, the Indian cricket board had said that there would be a review of the IPL sponsors.
“We still don’t know about the fate of the T20 World Cup, Asia Cup, so how can we just have a meeting? Yes, we need to discuss sponsorship but we never used the word cancel or terminate,” a senior BCCI official, who sits in IPL GC meetings, told the media on conditions of anonymity.
“We said we’ll review sponsorship. Review means that we need to check all the modalities of the contract. If the ‘Exit Clause’ favours VIVO more, why should we terminate a Rs 440 crore per year contract. We will only terminate if ‘Exit Clause’ favours us,” he added.
It has been heard from some BCCI officials that if VIVO doesn’t back out themselves, they will then be honoured for their remaining contract which ends in 2022.
The sudden termination of contract will result in substantial compensation for BCCI. Also, the chance of a feasible sponsor in a short time will also be a problem for BCCI during this pandemic situation.
Besides this the likes of PayTM [with Alibaba as an investor] or Dream XI, BYJUs and SWIGGY, who have investment from Chinese video game company Tencent, would not have to worry as they are Indian entities.
“Taking note of the border skirmish that resulted in the martyrdom of our brave jawans, the IPL Governing Council has convened a meeting next week to review IPL’s various sponsorship deals,” the official IPL twitter handle had stated on Friday, June 19.
However, it’s been nearly two weeks and no meeting has been scheduled and more importantly, at least two GC members confirmed to the media that they have not been told anything.
“I’ve called the IPL chairman (Brijesh Patel) and CEO (Rahul Johri) after I saw the tweet. But till date, I haven’t been intimated about any meeting. Possibly, they want to have a big meeting once the T20 World Cup is officially postponed,” one of the veteran GC members said.
