By Desh Gaurav Sekhri

The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the BCCI-IPL hearing on the Mudgal Committee report until the 8th and 9th of December, having dedicated both days entirely to this matter. While public opinion and the Supreme Court’s observations continue to eviscerate the BCCI, one ought to look at the BCCI’s point of view, and its possible courses of action. Let’s be cleareven if the Supreme Court either directly or through the Mudgal Committee decides to punish the wrongdoers, the BCCI still has remedial options.

The BCCI in the current situation could feel aggrieved at being singled out for what could be deemed a punitive detoxification.

So, if the worst case scenario for the BCCI unfolds, where it’s nominated or elected committee members are disqualified from contesting future elections, certain franchises are directed to be terminated, and the IPL itself becomes of ambiguous viability, the BCCI may deliberate and activate its options.

The first and most intuitive rectification the Board could seek, regardless of whether or not it emerges victorious in this matter, is to assign the commercial rights of the IPL to a private limited entity that has the sanction of the BCCI, but very little nexus other than that.

Had this been the original framework of the league, rather than establishing it as a sub-committee of the BCCI, it could have functioned relatively unhindered as a for-profit private league.

It would still be recognised as ‘official cricket’ in the form of a domestic event, and it is unlikely that conflict of interest would have been as barbed an argument, given that the executive body of the Board would not be directly involved with the corpus or commercials of the league. The Board could have been accused of being opportunistic, capitalistic even, but many of the grievances that the public and judiciary have against it would have been nullified to a certain extent.

Certainly, this would have been in line with international best practices, and interestingly, some recently launched professional sports leagues have followed in principle a similar corporate structure.

A second course of action and one which is perhaps more extreme and worrying would be if the BCCI decides that the constant scrutiny and involvement by the judiciary and legislature could render it untenable for the Board to continue as a national sports federation. The Board could then look at establishing itself as a private entity that fields cricket teams, organises cricket events, and most importantly, it will apply to the ICC for official sanction and accreditation. The reason why this is possible- the BCCI is an extremely vital and powerful member of the ICC, and it continues to have excellent relations with the world’s governing body for cricket.

So, it in all probability could receive the sanctioning by international body and its members, and its experience and network would ensure that it will be able to develop and run cricket with more success than any competing body.

An aspect that further strengthens this argument is that cricket isn’t and in all likelihood won’t be represented at the Olympics or Commonwealth Games, and BCCI has chosen not to field a squad for the Asiad, so for all intents and purposes, BCCI will probably not require accreditation from the IOC or be obliged to follow the Olympic Charter, or of any other global governing body except the ICC.

And of even more relevance, if the only sanctioning body is the ICC, then any punishment meted out to the Board under the ICC’s Anticorruption regulations would likely be heard once more by the ICC’s panel, rather than just implementing the directive of a committee or the courts.

The BCCI’s concerns if it pursues the above are the following-a possible restricted supply of cricket stadiums made available to it in India, and, if the anti-fraud bill becomes a law, then it will not be allowed to officially field the “Indian team” or “Team India” as an unaccredited Indian federation.

The former issue could be solved if the Board uses its networks to rent the stadiums on a commercial basis from the state federations, or in the longer term, create privately owned stadiums/infrastructure.

The latter issue of naming rights could be resolved by creative wordplay, provided of course that the bill becomes a law, rendering this necessary. If push comes to shove, the IPL could even be moved on a permanent basis outside of India- not ideal, but an option.

If the Board’s position is made untenable in what it could, perhaps reasonably, view as a witch-hunt against it, it will review its options. They may be unpopular and they will be complicated, but they are possible. If pushed into a corner it may just exercise them.

(The writer is a sports lawyer)