SAHARA'S LONG standing relationship with the BCCI has come to a sudden end just hours before the IPL auctions was scheduled to begin. Their contract was originally supposed to end on Dec 31, 2013, according to their deal. Sahara knows that it would take around 2-4 months for the BCCI to find a new sponsor, so they would still be paying the sponsorship money, reported Reuters.
Initial reports from the BCCI suggest that they had not received any thing in written from Sahara. Reuters has also reported that Sahara is going to pay the IPL players, coaches, and associates for this year, if they do not get a chance to play. But it would not be wrong if we say that BCCI has taken the right stance at the eleventh hour. Pune Warriors could have come out with a solution with the BCCI about it, if they had informed them at the right juncture, but the BCCI must also stick to the laws. If the BCCI would have agreed to their word then other IPL franchises might have also raised many a questions and put the IPL in the limelight for wrong reasons. They played it safe, but never did they know that Sahara would take this matter so far.
Sahara also seems to be dissatisfied with the rejection from the first edition of the IPL, where their bid was also not opened due to some reasons, which Sahara terms it ‘as the whims and fancies of BCCI’, reported Reuters. So with this major decision taken by Sahara, other major MNCs, companies and rich businessmen might be getting ready to table a bid for the sponsorship rights. Will it be a case of one company's loss is another company's gain as far as team sponsorship is concerned? Only time will tell.
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