The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is eager to ask the captains of Indian cricket team to make a declaration that they have no direct or indirect commercial interest when an agency that manages them can also manage other players of the team. The section mentioned among the rules and conflict of interest of BCCI pushing them to do so.
The Justice (retd) R M Lodha Committee, which was tasked by the Supreme Court with suggesting reforms in BCCI, had called for a vigorous agent registration system to safeguard players’ interests and eliminate a conflict of interest. It had asked for the agents to be cleared by an anti-corruption unit.
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Justice Lodha said there is no one bigger than the game. According to TOI, he stated “The committee has clearly mentioned in the recommendations on how to keep the player-agent relationship out of conflicts. If the reforms are used as per their convenience, it will lead to nothing. You can’t use the reforms in bits and pieces. Everyone who is involved with the game should be conflict-free and that is the essence of the recommendations. You have to disclose all the conflicts and that includes the captain, coach, commentators, support staff, administrators, managers, employees, agents and other stakeholders of the game.”
TOI quoted on behalf of a source “It is even better to ask the captain to make full disclosure about the other players who are being managed by his agency. In that way, the conflict can be eradicated as the captain will not have a say when a discussion about those players comes up in a selection meeting.”
With coaches, support staff, commentators, administrators and all the BCCI employees being asked to give an undertaking, revealing the possible conflict of interest. A big group of BCCI general governing body is in favor to start a process where the captain would have to disclose a conflict of interest.
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The CoA had set up a three-member committee – BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, former Maharashtra Cricket Association President Abhay Apte and Cricket Association of Bengal’s secretary Abhishek Dalmiya as its members – to look into conflict of interest issues and suggest guidelines.
