BCA will suffer huge loss, admits Ajit Wadekar (14 Sep 1996)

14-Sep-1996

14th Sept

BCA will suffer huge loss, admits Ajit Wadekar

Rediffusion on the Net

Former Indian cricket manager and vice president of the Bombay Cricket Association Ajit Wadekar admitted on Thursday that the association would be in the red to the tune of billions thanks to a bad deal on the Mega Videomatrix scoreboard installed at the Wankhede Stadium for the Wills World Cup league game between India and Australia in February.

Wadekar told the media that members of the association had, without his knowledge, hired the scoreboard at a rental of Rs 15 million a month on a five year, irreversible contract with the State Industrial Corporation of Maharashtra. The intention was to project the television replays and player profiles electronically, and to cover the mammoth costs through advertising support, Wadekar said.

The board was intended to be displayed near Bombay`s nodal Churchgate Railway Terminus after the match, to further augment revenue. But the agency in charge of garnering advertising for the board failed miserably, the former India cricket captain said. The result, he pointed out, was that the BCA was now stuck with a white elephant that was eating into revenue with every passing month.

Total losses are estimated in the vicinity of Rs 589 million, it was pointed out.

Blaming some members of the association for the mess without however naming them, Wadekar promised to clear it up if he was reelected to the post. The BCA elections are due on Saturday, September 14. Besides Wadekar himself, former Test star Dilip Vengsarkar, pace bowler Ramakant Desai and opening batsman Sudhir Naik are contesting for the post.

Interestingly, neither BCA president and Maharashtra chief minister Manohar Joshi, nor Wadekar himself, had much time at their disposal to attend board meetings during the preceeding year. And this time round, Wadekar will be based in Madras, where he has been transferred by his employers, State Bank of India.

Wadekar pointed out that the rot had begun with two rival factions within the BCA engaging in petty rivalry, and not bothering to keep the others informed of what they were up to. "I myself was totally unaware of this, and would have remained unaware had the secretary, who belongs to the rival faction, showed me the details," Wadekar said.

In what was literally a campaign speech, Wadekar directly blamed his rivals Naik and Desai for the mix-up. "For reasons best known to Messers Ramakant Desai and Sudhir Naik, they rescinded the earlier contract with the company which was authorised to bring about Rs 400 million in advertising for the matrix board per year, and gave the contract to another agency which failed to do what was required of it," Wadekar told the media.

Wadekar`s statements came in context of a mud-slinging match the two BCA secretaries, Bal Mahadalkar and Pravin Barve, have been carrying on through media columns in the run up to elections for arguably the most prestigious and easily the richest cricketing body in India.

State chief minister Manohar Joshi is already sure of being elected unopposed for a second term as BCA president, owing to the fact that no one has filed nominations against him.

Source :: Rediffusion on the Net (https://www.redifindia.com/)