Thakur to chair marketing committee meeting

The meeting is crucial since it is expected to discuss the Indian Premier League (IPL) broadcast rights renewal issue. According to the earlier agreement, Sony Pictures Networks (SPN), the broadcast rights holder for IPL till 2017, is supposed to have informed the BCCI by July end about its interest in renewing the deal.

A key BCCI official has confirmed to Sportstar that BCCI president Anurag Thakur will chair the marketing committee meeting.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has convened perhaps the last meeting of its marketing committee on August 5.

However, even before the eight members of one of the powerful committees discuss the key issue at hand, the BCCI corridors are abuzz with murmurs of “who will chair the marketing committee meeting?”

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The doubts have arisen following the suspension of Chetan Desai, the Goa Cricket Association (GCA) president who was appointed the chairman of the marketing committee.

Desai was arrested in June for allegedly misappropriating funds released to GCA by the BCCI. Even though he, along with former GCA president Vinod Phadke, is out on bail, the duo remains suspended from the BCCI sub-committees.

A key BCCI official, however, confirmed to Sportstar that president Anurag Thakur will chair the marketing committee meeting. The meeting is crucial since it is expected to discuss the Indian Premier League (IPL) broadcast rights renewal issue.

According to the earlier agreement, Sony Pictures Networks (SPN), the broadcast rights holder for IPL till 2017, is supposed to have informed the BCCI by July end about its interest in renewing the deal.

It is understood that SPN has already written to the BCCI hierarchy and the letter is likely to be tabled in the August 5 meeting, to be held in New Delhi.

The meeting could also be the last meeting of the marketing committee, with the BCCI having been ordered to implement the recommendations by three-member committee headed by former chief justice of India R.M. Lodha. With the BCCI being given time till January 2018 to implement the order, many of its powerful sub-committees will soon be history.

According to the rulebook framed by the Lodha Committee, the BCCI will have only two standing committees, seven cricket committees, the umpires committees and the IPL governing council.

All the other sub-committees, which mainly served as a junket for many state association representatives, will soon be a thing of the past. Instead, the Chief Executive Officer has been tasked with most of the responsibilities of the sub-committees.