Hyderabad: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is facing a lot of flak after the Indian Premier League’s (IPL’s) Governing Council announced on Sunday that the cricket tournament will be held in UAE this year and will retain all its sponsors, including Chinese mobile company Vivo.
IPL will be played from 19 September to 10 November, the Governing Council had declared after a virtual meeting on Sunday.
India’s apex trade body, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has strongly condemned the decision and written a letter to home minister Amit Shah seeking cancellation of the event.
In the letter, CAIT national general secretary Praveen Khandelwal said: “At a time when Chinese aggression on Indian borders in last month gave much rise to the sentiments of people of India against China and the Union Government under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is espousing his call for ‘vocal for local’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, the decision of the BCCI runs contrary to the broad policy of the government.”
In a strongly worded statement, the letter said that “the decision of the BCCI smacks its lust for money in utter disregard of safety of the people and that too involving Chinese companies”.
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Khandelwal also mentioned that BCCI should have refrained from organising IPL this year, especially when bigger sporting events like Olympics and Wimbledon have been called off. “BCCI being unable to hold IPL events in India has chosen to hold the event in Dubai, which clearly speaks of its resolve to hold IPL positively come what may. Such an attitude of BCCI is highly regretted,” he added.
Interestingly, BCCI’s secretary Jay Shah, who is also Amit Shah’s son, had not attended IPL’s governing council meeting on Sunday. The national governing body for cricket had earlier promised to review IPL’s sponsorship deals with Chinese companies like Vivo after an anti-China sentiment erupted in the country following border clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh in June.
National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah also took a jibe on BCCI’s decision saying the cricket tournament has been allowed to retain all its sponsors from China even as people are being told to boycott Chinese goods.
“Chinese cellphone makers will continue as title sponsors of the IPL while people are told to boycott Chinese products. It's no wonder China is thumbing its nose at us when we are so confused about how to handle Chinese money/investment/sponsorship/advertising,” Abdullah wrote on Twitter.
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Chinese cellphone makers will continue as title sponsors of the IPL while people are told to boycott Chinese products. It’s no wonder China is thumbing it’s nose at us when we are so confused about how to handle Chinese money/investment/sponsorship/advertising.
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 2, 2020 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">Chinese cellphone makers will continue as title sponsors of the IPL while people are told to boycott Chinese products. It’s no wonder China is thumbing it’s nose at us when we are so confused about how to handle Chinese money/investment/sponsorship/advertising.
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 2, 2020Chinese cellphone makers will continue as title sponsors of the IPL while people are told to boycott Chinese products. It’s no wonder China is thumbing it’s nose at us when we are so confused about how to handle Chinese money/investment/sponsorship/advertising.
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 2, 2020
“I feel bad for those idiots who threw their Chinese made TVs off their balconies only to see this happen,” another of his tweets said, adding: “Now the Chinese will know.......... what we always suspected that we really can’t manage without their sponsorship & advertising.”
(ETV Bharat Report)
