The plan for a parallel IPL

In his email to the BCCI, the English County Board Chairman, Giles Clarke, outlined the details of Lalit Modi's alleged plan to set up a parallel league in England. The details of the plan, as reported in the Indian Express, are:

The ten existing Indian franchises would have the first right to buy the new franchises in England at an auction. Each franchise would need to strike a 50% partnership with a UK-based stakeholder to give the team a local presence. If any of the existing franchises chose not to bid for a team, the losing bidders from the Indian auctions would have the second right to bid. After that, the auction will be thrown open to all interested bidders.

The counties would get 20% of the revenues while the franchises would get 80%.

All franchise fees are payable to the BCCI, out of which 20% may be paid to the clubs.

Each county would be guaranteed a payout between $3 - $5 million a year, along with a staging fee of $1.5 million

The player regulations would be the same as they are in the IPL - 10 overseas players per team, with no more than four in the playing 11.

The mail also spelt out potential courses of action should the national boards oppose the new league:

Players could be induced to revolt against the national boards, given their desire to capitalise on their earning power. It cites MS Dhoni as an example of some earning several times more than his BCCI salary from his IPL contract and spin-offs.

Alternatively, franchisees could buy out players who are prevented from playing in the league by their national boards and create their own cricket structure, thereby shifting the power structure of cricket.

Finally, Modi suggests such a development is inevitable even without the co-operation of the ICC, as players would rather play for money than their national or state / country sides. The smaller nations could be compensated for the loss of revenue from international games to allow the growth of the Twenty20 version.

"ODIs have reached a saturation point and though unlikely to disappear, cannot grow any further. Tests are almost redundant and only T20 has growth value.

"This would practically mean just a handful of nations playing international cricket and their players spending the rest of their time playing the IPL and its UK version, while the smaller countries sit idle and don't get to play any games."