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He added: "Cricket has become a religion in India. We will
give a boost to other sports also through our channel. We will work
hard on improving the production quality."
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Chandra
says that all formalities that the BCCI has asked for will
be completed. Even the initial amount of $20 million within
the next 48 hours. And the bank guarantees for a further $75
million by 15 September
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Earlier, BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya had told media persons
in Chennai that the contract had not yet been awarded to Zee TV,
but they had accepted Zee TV's revised bid.
"Formalities have to be completed," Dalmiya said. "Bank
guarantees have to be furnished, who will be doing the production
etc has to be clarified.."
He, however, added that he had no doubt that Zee would be able
to meet with the conditions the board had set for it. He said that
"the Letter of Intent will be extended to Zee soon after receipt
of US$20 million by the Board."
Dalmiya told media persons that the tender had not been reopened
but that rival bidder ESPN had agreed to pay $308 million at yesterday's
meeting. Zee had been given an opportunity to bid since it was the
highest bidder. And chairman Chandra agreed to match the bid put
up by ESPN-Star.
BCCI spokesperson Amrit Mathur, while speaking to Zee News,
added that the board expected domestic cricket to get a spurt. "The
Ranji Trophy, junior cricket... you will see it all getting a shot
in the arm," he said.
Meanwhile, ESPN Star Sports managing director Rik Dovey is believed
to have issued a statement in which he has stated.
"I am disappointed to learn that Zee had been even offered
the cricket rights and that the BCCI had changed the entire process
of bidding in violation of rules set by BCCI themselves."
"Yesterday [4 September] we were asked by the BCCI, after they
met Zee, to provide clarifications on our original bid, which we
did in light of their statement to us, that such clarifications
would be used by the Committee to conclude the process. The Tender
Committee had clearly expressed that they wanted the bidding process
to stop there."
"Today we were asked to attend a meeting to provide what was
described as further clarification. However, when we met the committee
we were informed that the BCCI `Tender Committee' had changed their
position from yesterday. We were informed that BCCI had just given
Zee the opportunity to increase their bid and that providing Zee
met certain conditions, not all of which were disclosed to ESPN-Star
Sports."
"We feel that today's proceedings clearly are a denial of natural
justice and a violation by the BCCI of its own tendering process."
One will have to wait to see how the ESPN-Star management will react.
On 4 September, Chandra had threatened the cricket board with legal
action if "inspite of being the highest bidder we are deprived
of the telecast rights."
Will ESPN-Star now take the legal route? Watch this space!
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