BCCI office bearers meet ‘informally’, go hammer and tongs against COA
Kolkata, March 25 (IANS) Accusing the Committee of Administrators (CoA) of unilaterally taking long-term decisions “detrimental to the BCCI”, a section of “concerned” Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) members including former president N. Srinivasan met in New Delhi on Saturday and prepared a 10-point charter as the way forward.
The three principal office-bearers, acting President C.K. Khanna, acting Secretary Amitabh Chaudhary and Treasurer Aniruddh Chaudhry decided to call the “informal” meeting in which they lambasted the two-member COA headed by Vinod Rai for mismanagement, a source who attended the meeting, told IANS.
As per CoA recommendations, all the three office-bearers have completed their term and should be removed.
Representatives of state associations also joined the meeting which took place in the evening.
“This was out of a common concern for the manner in which the CoA w s systematically taking decisions of long term consequence to the BCCI which was not the mandate given to them by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.
“The members discussed the following acts of the CoA that are detrimental to the BCCI and are long term in nature where decisions have been taken without consulting the general body of members of the BCCI,” the notes of the meeting, accessed by IANS, read.
“The COA it seems, has been taking decisions with the assumption that the BCCI members do not exist,” it read.
Among the 10 points of grievances, the members accused the COA of “not consulting the marketing team of BCCI” before putting “a minimum bid value which is lower than the value of six years ago (Rs 43 crores per match) on tender for media rights”.
They also alleged that the COA was “tying the hands and feet of experienced administrators of BCCI by bypassing provisions of the BCCI constitution”.
Virtually accusing the COA of nepotism, the note said: “It is a matter of great regret that the CoA approved one-time benefit to one of its members and her sister and has failed to disclose this as a transaction with an interested party. While the CoA pontificates on a number of things, when their interest is involved they are silent.”
The BCCI officials also discussed how COA were appointing people at exorbitant salaries without consulting the members or following any procedure. Previously, these “jobs” were carried out by members acting in an “honorary capacity.”
On the pitch, decisions related to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) was also being taken without consultation or approval of members or even the NCA committee, the note further read.
The office bearers also complained that the COA was directly engaging with the other members of the ICC “without advertence to the members or the office bearers” thus jeopardising BCCI’s position in the sport’s world body.
Taking on BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, the members said: “In the history of the BCCI, no office bearer or an employee felt the need to be protected professionally. The CEO, Mr Johri in consultation with a security consultant got a personal bodyguard provided to him under the pretext that he was his secretary. One such bodyguard was recently seen on duty for protection services with an IPL team owner.
“By billing the body guard under some other head to prevent members knowing about it, Mr Johri in conjunction with the CoA have falsified the accounts.”
They also alleged that a PR agency was roped in to uplift the image of the BCCI but apparently no work has been done on that front, and on the contrary, “there were reports of them working to malign the image of the members and office bearers, especially before an approaching date of hearing in the Hon’ble Supreme Court”.
It was learnt that former secretary Niranjan Shah was also present.