To understand the MS Dhoni-Rhiti Sports controversy, a little background is called for. The reason is not to mitigate or justify what is clearly a conflict of interest — the Indian cricket captain being, at least for a short period, part-owner of a company that represented other cricketers whose selection he helped decide — but to decipher the precise nature of the conflict of interest. Shortly after Dhoni began playing for India in 2004-05, he was signed up by a well-known sports management company that promised to win him endorsement contracts but retain 30% as its (the company’s) fee. This was the high noon of player representatives in Indian cricket. Agents would sign up a series of newcomers in the hope that one or two would click. The bigger stars, such as Sachin Tendulkar, were guaranteed a minimum sum per year.In Dhoni’s case, his success was sudden and dramatic. The 30% fee became simply too much to give away. He moved allegiance to a start-up, before settling for Rhiti Sports. Rhiti is formally fronted by Arun Pandey, a friend of Dhoni’s. It has been an open secret though that Rhiti is more or less directed by Dhoni, irrespective of where the shareholding officially lies.The reason is clear enough: Dhoni is Rhiti’s one striking asset. His appeal, brand value and business acumen decide Rhiti’s revenues. Evidence of this can be provided, industry insiders say, by Rhiti’s investment in Mahi Racing, a vertical that has bought a team for the World Superbike Championship.Motorcycles are an obsession with Dhoni. To buy a Superbike team is an individual indulgence; it does not make much sense for a proper business corporation in India.Why did Dhoni incubate Rhiti Sports? At one level, this was a process of disintermediation. It also came at a time when the agents’ system was dying out. Indeed, aside from Dhoni and, say, Virat Kohli — and, of course, Tendulkar — very few individual cricketers command the massive endorsement fees that were once the norm. The Indian Premier League (IPL) has changed the rules. Agents as well as sponsors now prefer working with franchises and signing associate sponsorship deals. Betting heavily on one cricketer is not worth the risk.In the days when they mattered, agents did try and influence team selection. Ten years ago, companies or agents representing Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid ran media campaigns on who should be India’s captain. These agents had sets of players signed up and were meddling in Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) politics. They allied with BCCI factions and pushed for favourites to be appointed selectors.Almost certainly, this was a game Ganguly and Dravid were oblivious to. What Dhoni has done with Rhiti is that he has entered the fray a little directly. To be fair, both Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev ran cricket-related businesses during their playing careers. Those were simpler days, however, well before the cricket economy exploded and endorsement contracts became available even to junior cricketers. That is what makes Dhoni’s conflict of interest stand out so much.While the Dhoni-Rhiti nexus has made news, on the evidence available, the Indian captain is guilty of impropriety rather than proven wrongdoing. There have been more egregious cases that have been ignored. In 2006, Kiran More’s cricket school in Baroda became the first Indian client/partner of the Australian International Sports Academy, a private enterprise that Greg Chappell was affiliated to and that ran a programme called The Chappell Way.At close to Rs 1 lakh each, aspiring Indian cricketers could travel to Australia for a two-week regimen at The Chappell Way. The first batch of trainees to leave India was from More’s academy.In 2006, Chappell was Indian cricket coach. More was chairman of the selection panel, and notorious for rubber-stamping Chappell’s decisions and surrendering authority to him.More recently, Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s term as selection committee chairman was deeply troubling. He was, at the same time, brand ambassador for Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the IPL team. N Srinivasan was secretary and then-president of the BCCI and, therefore, Srikkanth’s boss at the board as well as his paymaster, so to speak, in the IPL.This was also the phase when CSK players seemed to get preferential treatment in being offered Indian team contracts. They contributed perhaps the largest segment to the pool of cricketers chosen for BCCI retainerships each year. Of course, CSK was and is captained by Dhoni, as is the Indian team. Dhoni is also vice-president of India Cements, CSK’s parent company. So how does Indian cricket distinguish between golden handcuffs, perquisites beyond the IPL auction fee and plain conflicts of interest? You decide.The writer is a political and sports commentator