Mumbai, June 24 (IANS) Indian Premier League (IPL) franchisees and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) officials met here Thursday to discuss a range of issues including player retention, salary cap and the format of the tournament for the next season.
The meeting was chaired by new IPL chairman Chirayu Amin, who has replaced the suspended Lalit Modi. All the 10 franchise owners were present at the meeting.
Royal Challengers Bangalore owner Vijay Mallya said a number of issues related to the new season were discussed during the meeting.
‘The majority view was all players should go back into auction and the spending cap for the teams should be increased from $7 million to $9 million. Also, the format of tournament should not change,’ Mallya told reporters.
B. Vanchi, director of GMR Sports, which owns the Delhi Daredevils, said they were satisfied with the meeting.
‘BCCI is open to sugggestions of the team owners. A lot of things were discussed, inlcluding player retention and salary cap. We put across our suggestion and BCCI gave their views. Nothing is decided yet and there is still lot of time to finalise everything.’
Two new teams – Kochi and Pune – will be competing in the next IPL season and there will be a fresh auction of players. The most important issue is whether the original eight teams should be allowed to keep any of their current players. On their part, the new teams would like to get a fair chance to pick their choice of players in an auction.
Other issues are the maximum permissible size of teams, a salary cap that includes players bought outside the auction and shortening the format of the tournament.
BCCI will discuss the suggestions of the team owners at the IPL Governing Council meeting Friday.
Mallya, who had been a vocal supporter of Modi, refused to take questions about the suspended IPL commissioner.
‘Lalit Modi is suspended so we have to look ahead now,’ he said.
Ness Wadia of Kings XI Punjab, however, said: ‘Modi was hanged by the press before a trial.’
