Modi Snubs IPL Crisis Meeting

The crisis in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has gathered pace after tournament organiser Lalit Modi declined to attend a meeting with the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) to discuss allegations of match fixing and financial irregularities.

Modi is facing a tax probe amid claims from political opposition that the league is a front for money laundering and illegal betting.

The Indian cricket board (BCCI), which owns the IPL, has called a meeting of the tournament’s governing council to discuss the claims.

However Modi has declined to attend the meeting, saying it was unauthorised and that he wanted a further five days to reply to the charges against the league.

‘If the meeting does go ahead on 26th April instead of 1st May as I have asked, it will deem to be unofficial,’ Modi wrote to the BCCI in an e-mail that was made public.

‘I do not propose to attend any unauthorised meeting.’

BCCI president Shashank Manohar has responded saying the meeting in Mumbai would go ahead as scheduled and claimed the support of the majority in the 14-member council.

Modi is the driving force behind the success of the IPL, which has seen its brand value surge to $4.1bn in just three short years.

The tax probe began after junior foreign minister Shashi Tharoor was forced to resign over claims that his girlfriend was given a free stake worth $15m in a new franchise ‘mentored’ by the minister.

Details of the ownership of the team, in the southern city of Kochi, were leaked on microblogging website Twitter by Modi.

The IPL, which began in 2008, features the world’s top cricketers playing the popular Twenty20 format of the game for eight franchises owned by India’s wealthy businessmen and film stars. Two more franchises are to be added for the 2011 season.