The hullabaloo over the sports bill did not actually worry the mandarins of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Even before the cabinet rejected the proposed bill, the board officials were confident that it was not going anywhere. All through Tuesday, the board officials maintained that there is a long way before the bill became a law.
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“There are enough MPs to oppose it if it were to be approved by the Cabinet,” said a BCCI official rather audaciously.
When the news of its rejection trickled in, he said it is the best news in these times of distress. He was referring to the pounding the Indian team got in England.
Another official went to the extent of stating that the sports minister should resign. “Ajay Maken has lost the moral right to continue. He should resign,” said a senior BCCI official.
According to the board officials, the BCCI has been opposing any regulation of its autonomy. At a meeting of the sports bodies in New Delhi on June 1, the BCCI fielded its firebrand official to do the firefighting with the sports ministry.
Arun Jaitley, tipped to be the next president of the BCCI, had given a point by point rebuttal of the bill stating that the board was not against accountability but opposed to regulation.
The BCCI contended that on what basis the bill stipulates 70 years as the upper age limit for an administrator. “Why 70? Why not 65? What is the basis for this,” asked a BCCI official then stating that the sports ministry’s proposal to bring the BCCI under RTI and Wada preview is also not acceptable.
“The minister may note that there has not been single instance of a dope offence by an Indian cricketer since 2003. Besides, we’ve signed up for the Wada code of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
We also use Wada affiliated agencies for dope tests during the IPL. We also need not be under RTI because we don’t take any grants from the government,” the official said. He also cited a Supreme Court ruling, which says that ‘if you don’t take any grant, you cannot come under RTI’.
Foreseeing issues with the sports ministry, the BCCI had actually engineered a motion at the ICC, which authorises the world body to take action against the national associations coming under the government influence.
At its Annual Conference in Hong Kong in July, the ICC gave two years time to those national bodies, which are under the government control in their countries.
The rule appears to be aimed at boards in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh where the government controls the national cricket bodies, but ICC insiders say that the rule was created to help the BCCI to fight its sports minister.
