Whose money was BCCI giving away?

The BCCI is a monopoly house. So who would like to give up cushy administrative tasks when there is neither a challenge from the inside, or the outside for that matter? This is the crux of the problem. No one ever wishes to leave an honorary post which avowedly calls for selfless service to the game and its players. There are several perks though, including the egotistical one of having the likes of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli pay their respects, apart from the travel.

To confront the Supreme Court is a no-brainer too since you won’t be the one having to pay the lawyers’ fees. The BCCI would have spent a few hundred crores in the last five years in fighting this legal battle, but it is never considered a lost cause because the lawyers have to make you believe there is a way out of everything. And so the merry circus has run for so long while the learned retired judges grapple with the issue of how to teach the values of fair practices to a monopoly house.

If the high board officials, instead of being permanently confrontational, had been willing to negotiate somewhere along the way, they may have had a fairer deal than the sweeping reforms being thrust upon them now. But then, the power of money closed their eyes. If they were told not to do a certain thing like attending a meeting, they would go ahead and do just that. Furthermore, the official told not to do so even chaired the meeting.

If the court took umbrage, there was always an unqualified apology to offer. But that is where the drama revved up. A price had to be paid for such arrogance. The majesty of the law had to prevail. That is the thread on which this tale turned and the BCCI has been continuously hauled up in court since. The betting scandals were there long before the IPL was shaken up by massive revelations concerning cricketers and team owners. It is the Board’s tendency to sweep every scandal under the carpet that brought about this virtual comeuppance before the top court.

It cannot be the basis of an argument that only a minor politician from a small state, in which his national party is not even the ruling party, has all the qualities to lead the BCCI. But that is what all the admin men are saying — without them cricket board will come to a juddering halt.  It would be the BCCI’s ultimate tragedy if the top court goes ahead and appoints a panel of administrators including former cricketers, admin and marketing men.

There are plenty around with the acumen to run the BCCI. So why would amateur admin men wish to keep clinging to honorary jobs unless there was something in it for them.

Maybe, it is the buzz of being on the BCCI throne that drives people. Men can’t be blamed for being ambitious. But what they do when they sit there is what defines them and not what else they are. This is a principle never easily understood in India — that the decisions people have to take in high office is more important than how important they feel in making those decisions. It is the hubris that finally gets them. That hubris is certainly the main reason why they are on the carpet this time around with nowhere to go.

When the BCCI was confronted for the first time in the top court back in 1989 on the issue concerning the ban on players who toured USA, the defence it put up was pathetic. But then its strategy was that the next CJI would be favourably inclined towards it and so try to pull the case along. This was no fight on principles, only on personalities. The drubbing they received at the hands of a bench headed by Justice Venkatachaliah set the tone. The BCCI is still the hunted party because it lays so little store by the first principles of fair governance.

Under a head honcho of recent times, democracy and discussion became anathema while those kowtowing had oodles of cash dangled before them. But whose money was the BCCI giving away? It was the game’s popularity and the players’ collective ability to draw an audience that fetched the bundles of cash and TV royalties over the years. Those who had served the game were being rewarded with their own cash but it was made to seem as if it was the largesse of these great admin men. The game has waited long enough, but the day of reckoning is not too far now.