CBI team in Monaco to probe award of telecast rights

A CBI team has reached Monaco to probe the alleged bungling in the award of telecast rights of the 1999 World Cup played in England, agency sources said in New Delhi on Thursday.

The Deputy Inspector General of the Anti-Corrpution Unit of the CBI SP Singh reached Monaco, an island located at the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of France, earlier this week to probe the alleged bungling.

CBI sources said that the television deal between the International Cricket Council, officials of Doordarshan and Worldtel took place in this island and the sleuths are hopeful of "picking up some threads about the deal."

Singh earlier visited London and held extensive discussions with ICC's Anti-Corruption unit officials in connection with investigation into the controversial television rights deal for the ICC knock out tournament in Dhaka three years ago.

Though there was no major breakthrough in the probe, CBI sources said the support from ICC was important for the agency as some of the cricket world body's unknown officials had also been named in two of the cases.

The CBI, on November 8 last year, had registered five cases against some Doordarshan officials for allegedly cheating Prasar Bharti of crores of rupees in award of telecast rights for cricket and tennis matches.

Among the five cases, three relate to alleged bungling in telecast rights for the 1997 Independence Cup, the ICC Knock-out tournament in 1998 in Dhaka and the World Cup in 1999.

The CBI has already made a request for release of details of the controversial television deal about the ICC knock out tournament in Dhaka in which the agency has named some unknown officials of ICC in its FIR.

The deal involved two transactions. A consortium headed by Doordarshan won the right to televise the event after the ICC decided to increase their minimum guarantee to 10 million dollars.

WorldTel had a deal with the Doordarshan consortium to distribute the rights around the world and to produce the TV coverage.

The CBI alleged that some officials of Doordarshan entered into a criminal conspiracy with the Bangalore-based WorldTel and Delhi-based Stracon India and dishonestly enhanced the bid for the telecast of the tournament.