The Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise owners’ meeting has been rescheduled. The conference was originally set for April 16 in Ahmedabad, and various reports claim that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) notified the franchise owners that it had been postponed due to an alteration in the IPL schedule. Even though certain franchises have been taking a firm stance against raising the number of retentions, a new date has not been announced.
The purpose of the meeting was to talk about the IPL’s future after the mega-auction the next year. The owners’ opinions on the amount of player purse and the number of retentions that should be allowed were sought after by the BCCI’s senior brass. There has been discussion of raising the player purse from its current ceiling of Rs 100 crore and increasing the number of retentions from the current four.
There is a school of thought, though, that says the franchises should be given more Right To Match (RTM) alternatives and that the retention should not exceed one. It has been suggested that the RTM process would be determined by market value and transparency. Retention has been said to have the potential to result in participants receiving surrogate and hidden payments.
Franchises would be able to purchase their current players at a price set during the live auction thanks to the RTM mechanism. The risk that some teams would inflate a player’s bidding price artificially so that the interested club will have to pay more is the drawback of the RTM technique. However, they also run the danger of thereafter having to pay the higher price to get the player. Eight retentions have been discussed, although some argue that there should only be one retention and seven RTM alternatives. Naturally, the BCCI has opinions about how to proceed, but it hasn’t exactly said what it thinks.
The meeting between the franchise proprietors and BCCI/IPL authorities was scheduled to take place in Ahmedabad during an IPL match between the Gujarat Titans and Delhi Capitals. However, the BCCI has moved the Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Rajasthan Royals match at the Eden to April 16, postponing that match by one day. The Rama Navami celebrations in Kolkata and the city police’s voiced worries about security made the re-jig imperative.
