The Dostoyevsky Defense!!!

It’s a good thing the IPL is over and with it, all reason to be concerned about the environment. Six cartons of printouts running into a few thousand pages [I read five newspapers this morning and all of them cite a different figure -- was tempted to hold up the hand of the highest bidder and declare that paper the winner] — what was Modi thinking?

Actually, the “IPL chairman and commissioner (suspended)” — trust Modi to use his suspension on his visiting card — and his legal team has been thinking fairly hard. And fairly well. And their response could in time to come be studied by those who study such things, under the title The Dostoyevsky Defense or some such: note that his reply is roughly the size of Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground. Combined.

You’ve got to love the man. Not only does he bury the BCCI under a mountain of paper while he himself chills in Monaco, he adds a gratuitous barb that it should take a “trained lawyer” like Shashank Manohar only three or four days to go through those six crates. Brilliant.

The framing of his defense has been uniformly fascinating. Step one [kind of like castling, say, where the objective was to build a defensive stronghold] was when he demanded that all charges against him be basis documentary evidence. Consider the original charges one more time: “behavioral patterns” is off the board because what the hell kind of documents can the board produce to back that up?; the charge that he tried to muscle Kochi into surrendering the franchise is equally off the table because (a) he is certainly smart enough not to threaten anyone through documented paperwork in triplicate and (b) the minutes of his meetings with the franchise, which IPL CEO Sundar Raman wrote, would only tend to present the picture Modi wished to present.

So that is two out of six charges defused. A third relates to the charge of finagling the internet rights to favor family and friends — and on that no one, not the board, not even the various investigative arms of the government, have been able to piece together with appropriate documentation the elaborate shell game through which rights were transfered and re-transfered until they ended up in the ‘right’ hands. So that is three out of six charges defanged even before the disciplinary hearings have even started.

The remaining three charges are what Modi and his battery of high priced lawyers have buried under a blizzard of paperwork — and significantly, the papers are supposed to include copies of SMSes sent to “members of the governing council”. That line underscores what has become common knowledge in recent times — that while Modi did not at all times take the governing council in toto into his confidence, he roped in various individual members, including two former cricketers who are part of the council, into parts of various schemes [that also explains why Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar have, unlike Pataudi, been totally silent on the issue ever since it hit the headlines].

Modi’s strategy is simple, and so is his defense: injured innocence, and a paper trail a mile wide to show that various members of the council knew what he was doing as he was doing it.

In other words, he changes the nature of the charges against him. It is not about whether there was irregularity in the granting of franchises to KXIP and Rajasthan Royals — the point, he will argue, is not whether everything was kosher or not, but whether he kept the governing council in the loop while it was all happening. To that end, his argument is, if I informed one member of the council of what I was doing at the time I was doing it, it is tantamount to having informed the whole council.

Neat.

READ more at LINK

The Dostoyevsky Defense!!!

It’s a good thing the IPL is over and with it, all reason to be concerned about the environment. Six cartons of printouts running into a few thousand pages [I read five newspapers this morning and all of them cite a different figure -- was tempted to hold up the hand of the highest bidder and declare that paper the winner] — what was Modi thinking?

Actually, the “IPL chairman and commissioner (suspended)” — trust Modi to use his suspension on his visiting card — and his legal team has been thinking fairly hard. And fairly well. And their response could in time to come be studied by those who study such things, under the title The Dostoyevsky Defense or some such: note that his reply is roughly the size of Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground. Combined.

You’ve got to love the man. Not only does he bury the BCCI under a mountain of paper while he himself chills in Monaco, he adds a gratuitous barb that it should take a “trained lawyer” like Shashank Manohar only three or four days to go through those six crates. Brilliant.

The framing of his defense has been uniformly fascinating. Step one [kind of like castling, say, where the objective was to build a defensive stronghold] was when he demanded that all charges against him be basis documentary evidence. Consider the original charges one more time: “behavioral patterns” is off the board because what the hell kind of documents can the board produce to back that up?; the charge that he tried to muscle Kochi into surrendering the franchise is equally off the table because (a) he is certainly smart enough not to threaten anyone through documented paperwork in triplicate and (b) the minutes of his meetings with the franchise, which IPL CEO Sundar Raman wrote, would only tend to present the picture Modi wished to present.

So that is two out of six charges defused. A third relates to the charge of finagling the internet rights to favor family and friends — and on that no one, not the board, not even the various investigative arms of the government, have been able to piece together with appropriate documentation the elaborate shell game through which rights were transfered and re-transfered until they ended up in the ‘right’ hands. So that is three out of six charges defanged even before the disciplinary hearings have even started.

The remaining three charges are what Modi and his battery of high priced lawyers have buried under a blizzard of paperwork — and significantly, the papers are supposed to include copies of SMSes sent to “members of the governing council”. That line underscores what has become common knowledge in recent times — that while Modi did not at all times take the governing council in toto into his confidence, he roped in various individual members, including two former cricketers who are part of the council, into parts of various schemes [that also explains why Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar have, unlike Pataudi, been totally silent on the issue ever since it hit the headlines].

Modi’s strategy is simple, and so is his defense: injured innocence, and a paper trail a mile wide to show that various members of the council knew what he was doing as he was doing it.

In other words, he changes the nature of the charges against him. It is not about whether there was irregularity in the granting of franchises to KXIP and Rajasthan Royals — the point, he will argue, is not whether everything was kosher or not, but whether he kept the governing council in the loop while it was all happening. To that end, his argument is, if I informed one member of the council of what I was doing at the time I was doing it, it is tantamount to having informed the whole council.

Neat.

READ more at LINK

Beyond the Boundary Lines - IPL saga thread

Please use this thread to post all the articles about IPL related articles.

How to own an IPL team

Mumbai, April 20: You didn’t have to give up a leg or an arm to own an IPL team. Not if you were brave enough to take the plunge three seasons ago.

Back in 2008, the bidders needed a stomach for risk rather than a sackful of dollars. “You don’t have to be India’s top industrialist to own an IPL team,” said Mumbai-based Nabankar Gupta, founder and CEO of Nobby Brand Architects and Strategic Marketing.

“IPL offers an opportunity for an investment with returns and cash flows quite similar to people investing in companies, real estate and shares. You can share ownership and limit the amount you need to invest in a team,” Gupta added.

Franchise owners are cagey but they are more circumspect about the numbers. However, a key factor that largely goes unnoticed when eye-popping figures are bandied about is the franchisees have a 10-year window to pay the money. They don’t need to stump up the cash at one go.

Take a team like the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), which couldn’t make it to the semi-final this time because of its poor net run rate even though it put a decent 14 points on the table.

Shah Rukh Khan’s investment in the side hasn’t been very high: he is reported to have put in about Rs 14 crore by way of equity while Jay Mehta and his wife Juhi Chawla chipped in with Rs 9 crore or so. That’s small beer for King Khan — he makes that kind of money with a couple of advertisements.

A source said KKR — a team that was valued by Brand Finance of the UK as the second highest this year after Chennai Super Kings on the back of its robust sponsorship earnings courtesy King Khan — would make a small profit this year.

KKR’s yearly franchise fee of around Rs 35 crore is the biggest cost element in its Rs 90-crore annual budget. A third of the financing has come from debt worth about Rs 30 crore.

When it comes to earnings, KKR will get about Rs 40 crore from the BCCI from the central pool of revenues.

Under the revenue sharing formula, the BCCI gets to keep 20 per cent of the central revenue in the first three years while the teams divide 80 per cent of the revenues.

Under the rules, the BCCI’s share will rise to 30 per cent in seasons 4 and 5, and further to 40 per cent from seasons 6 to 10.

Teams that make it to the semi-final will get a little more cash, said the source.

The KKR numbers serve as a template for most teams — give or take a couple of crores. The Mumbai Indians’ budget won’t top Rs 110 crore while the Rajasthan Royals side — which put in the lowest bid at $67 million — won’t have to cater for a budget above Rs 80 crore. Besides, for Mumbai, which paid a higher fee, revenue also will be higher.

There’s a thumb rule here: most teams won’t need an equity capital — the money that the owners need to stump up — of more than Rs 25 crore to fund a business that is worth Rs 100 crore on an average.

Throw in a debt component of about Rs 25 crore and these owners are in clover. The rest of the money will come out of sponsorships, guaranteed payouts from the BCCI and other streams of revenue.


Read more HERE.

Beyond the Boundary Lines - IPL saga thread

Please use this thread to post all the articles about IPL related articles.

How to own an IPL team

Mumbai, April 20: You didn’t have to give up a leg or an arm to own an IPL team. Not if you were brave enough to take the plunge three seasons ago.

Back in 2008, the bidders needed a stomach for risk rather than a sackful of dollars. “You don’t have to be India’s top industrialist to own an IPL team,” said Mumbai-based Nabankar Gupta, founder and CEO of Nobby Brand Architects and Strategic Marketing.

“IPL offers an opportunity for an investment with returns and cash flows quite similar to people investing in companies, real estate and shares. You can share ownership and limit the amount you need to invest in a team,” Gupta added.

Franchise owners are cagey but they are more circumspect about the numbers. However, a key factor that largely goes unnoticed when eye-popping figures are bandied about is the franchisees have a 10-year window to pay the money. They don’t need to stump up the cash at one go.

Take a team like the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), which couldn’t make it to the semi-final this time because of its poor net run rate even though it put a decent 14 points on the table.

Shah Rukh Khan’s investment in the side hasn’t been very high: he is reported to have put in about Rs 14 crore by way of equity while Jay Mehta and his wife Juhi Chawla chipped in with Rs 9 crore or so. That’s small beer for King Khan — he makes that kind of money with a couple of advertisements.

A source said KKR — a team that was valued by Brand Finance of the UK as the second highest this year after Chennai Super Kings on the back of its robust sponsorship earnings courtesy King Khan — would make a small profit this year.

KKR’s yearly franchise fee of around Rs 35 crore is the biggest cost element in its Rs 90-crore annual budget. A third of the financing has come from debt worth about Rs 30 crore.

When it comes to earnings, KKR will get about Rs 40 crore from the BCCI from the central pool of revenues.

Under the revenue sharing formula, the BCCI gets to keep 20 per cent of the central revenue in the first three years while the teams divide 80 per cent of the revenues.

Under the rules, the BCCI’s share will rise to 30 per cent in seasons 4 and 5, and further to 40 per cent from seasons 6 to 10.

Teams that make it to the semi-final will get a little more cash, said the source.

The KKR numbers serve as a template for most teams — give or take a couple of crores. The Mumbai Indians’ budget won’t top Rs 110 crore while the Rajasthan Royals side — which put in the lowest bid at $67 million — won’t have to cater for a budget above Rs 80 crore. Besides, for Mumbai, which paid a higher fee, revenue also will be higher.

There’s a thumb rule here: most teams won’t need an equity capital — the money that the owners need to stump up — of more than Rs 25 crore to fund a business that is worth Rs 100 crore on an average.

Throw in a debt component of about Rs 25 crore and these owners are in clover. The rest of the money will come out of sponsorships, guaranteed payouts from the BCCI and other streams of revenue.


Read more HERE.

Target Modi, not VIP allies

New Delhi, April 19: The government is expected to concentrate its firepower on IPL chief Lalit Modi but unlikely to go the whole hog in its efforts to clean up the IPL mess as that could involve hunting down “very big players”, sources said today.

The finance ministry has asked its various investigative and enforcement wings to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the IPL commissioner’s assets and financial deals. The corporate affairs ministry has also entered “the picture”, as minister Salman Khursheed put it.

While the tax department is piling heat on the BCCI by seeking replies to nine queries by April 23, the Enforcement Directorate is looking into deals abroad.

The notice to the BCCI — the board is extremely wary of government interference — is being seen as a loud signal to dump Modi, while the enforcement drive is being interpreted as a portent of a tougher crackdown if he holds his ground. The directorate is known for strong-arm tactics such as arrests and imprisonment.

That the issue stayed on the government’s radar a day after Shashi Tharoor resigned was evident from the fact that the Prime Minister was briefed on the IPL issue by BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla during the day.

The Modi camp so far has an ally in Sharad Pawar but it is not clear which way the NCP leader will swing if the government persists with its crackdown on the IPL chief. Some IPL franchisees have also started speaking against Modi, though Vijay Mallya, who owns the Royal Challengers Bangalore, is standing by him in public.

Although finance minister Pranab Mukherjee today told the Lok Sabha that “no wrongdoer would be spared”, not everyone in the Congress supports the idea of risking the government to cleanse the cricket administration.

Some party leaders have requested the government to look into the whole gamut of cricket management, including the roles of two Union ministers.

These ministers, however, are from an important UPA ally and the government is not too keen on pushing them beyond a point. Having lost its own minister, the Congress would like to hit back — but not by endangering its own future.

“We can say that the (cricket administration) system will become more organised now. We know the extent of illegalities in the IPL and the people involved in it. People like Lalit Modi will find the going tough now,” a senior Congress leader said.

Government sources dismissed as impractical the demand to ban or take over the IPL, voiced by several MPs in the Lok Sabha today.

Leaders such as Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Lalu Prasad clamoured for a ban on the T20 league, describing it as a huge racket involving money-laundering, betting and “ayyashi” (pleasure trips).

They suggested that black money from Swiss banks and other tax havens were being pumped into the league. But the statements are being seen more as rhetoric than based on hard evidence.

The BJP, which had led the calls for Tharoor’s head, made ritualistic noises about a thorough probe into the IPL after trying in vain to shift the focus to other issues.

Responding to the MPs’ demands, the finance minister said: “All aspects including sources of funding and routes through which the funds arrived would be looked into. Appropriate action as per law would be taken. No guilty (person) or wrongdoer will be spared.”

The Congress indicated its desire to fight a limited battle by targeting the BJP alone for its “hypocrisy and double standards”

Read more HERE.

Target Modi, not VIP allies

New Delhi, April 19: The government is expected to concentrate its firepower on IPL chief Lalit Modi but unlikely to go the whole hog in its efforts to clean up the IPL mess as that could involve hunting down “very big players”, sources said today.

The finance ministry has asked its various investigative and enforcement wings to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the IPL commissioner’s assets and financial deals. The corporate affairs ministry has also entered “the picture”, as minister Salman Khursheed put it.

While the tax department is piling heat on the BCCI by seeking replies to nine queries by April 23, the Enforcement Directorate is looking into deals abroad.

The notice to the BCCI — the board is extremely wary of government interference — is being seen as a loud signal to dump Modi, while the enforcement drive is being interpreted as a portent of a tougher crackdown if he holds his ground. The directorate is known for strong-arm tactics such as arrests and imprisonment.

That the issue stayed on the government’s radar a day after Shashi Tharoor resigned was evident from the fact that the Prime Minister was briefed on the IPL issue by BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla during the day.

The Modi camp so far has an ally in Sharad Pawar but it is not clear which way the NCP leader will swing if the government persists with its crackdown on the IPL chief. Some IPL franchisees have also started speaking against Modi, though Vijay Mallya, who owns the Royal Challengers Bangalore, is standing by him in public.

Although finance minister Pranab Mukherjee today told the Lok Sabha that “no wrongdoer would be spared”, not everyone in the Congress supports the idea of risking the government to cleanse the cricket administration.

Some party leaders have requested the government to look into the whole gamut of cricket management, including the roles of two Union ministers.

These ministers, however, are from an important UPA ally and the government is not too keen on pushing them beyond a point. Having lost its own minister, the Congress would like to hit back — but not by endangering its own future.

“We can say that the (cricket administration) system will become more organised now. We know the extent of illegalities in the IPL and the people involved in it. People like Lalit Modi will find the going tough now,” a senior Congress leader said.

Government sources dismissed as impractical the demand to ban or take over the IPL, voiced by several MPs in the Lok Sabha today.

Leaders such as Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Lalu Prasad clamoured for a ban on the T20 league, describing it as a huge racket involving money-laundering, betting and “ayyashi” (pleasure trips).

They suggested that black money from Swiss banks and other tax havens were being pumped into the league. But the statements are being seen more as rhetoric than based on hard evidence.

The BJP, which had led the calls for Tharoor’s head, made ritualistic noises about a thorough probe into the IPL after trying in vain to shift the focus to other issues.

Responding to the MPs’ demands, the finance minister said: “All aspects including sources of funding and routes through which the funds arrived would be looked into. Appropriate action as per law would be taken. No guilty (person) or wrongdoer will be spared.”

The Congress indicated its desire to fight a limited battle by targeting the BJP alone for its “hypocrisy and double standards”

Read more HERE.