Three years ago I was waiting for my car outside Dubai’s Grosvenor House hotel, when I bumped into an old friend. He introduced me to a new colleague of his called Lalit.
Interesting guy, Lalit was. I asked him what he did. “You’ll soon find out. I’m going to change the world. And nothing’s going to stop me,” he said. In the space of five minutes, this brash, abrasive and super confident man told me about his plans for the Indian Premier League.
Lalit Modi did indeed change the world. In the space of three years, he totally transformed the face of cricket by launching the Indian Premier League. Today, he finds himself at the centre of a huge financial scandal, having been suspended as chairman of the tournament he created. So, what went wrong?
The problem for Modi is that he has become a victim of his own success. He was too damn quick and too damn good. And now the old guard and establishment has turned on the man who some believe should be made prime minister rather than a scapegoat.
What Modi achieved in just a few short years is quite astonishing. He launched the first IPL match on April 18, 2008, and today, the franchise is now said to be worth $4.1bn. There are just eight teams in IPL, yet the global television rights were sold for a staggering $1.02bn. Team salaries are second only to the NBA league in the US.
There are 80 key sponsors, with India’s largest real estate developer, the DLF Group paying $50m to be associated with a tournament that only runs for a few weeks between April and May each year. From Bur Dubai to New Delhi, and Birmingham to Manila, the world’s Asian population has gone crazy for the sport. Modi has done in three years what Bernie Ecclestone took 25 years to do. What a hero. What a genius.
But not everyone is pleased. The Indian tax authorities have made claims of match fixing, betting and money laundering. No details, plenty of innuendo. The Indian government, unimpressed with a man who at one time appeared to be calling the shots in Parliament are delighted with his downfall. At Lords, the old guard of test cricket die-hards, they were furious that his Twenty20 vision for the game had turned test cricket on its head, now they are delighted. Sponsors and television companies who failed get a slice of the IPL are just as happy.
As former Indian captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, one of the country’s most respected cricket personalities, told a UK paper: “His style puts people off. Modi’s biggest failure is that he has been doing it all alone. He certainly doesn’t want anyone else involved. That is his biggest strength and his biggest weakness.”
How true. Shamefully, having created something to make the world proud, India has pressed the self-destruct button. Individual success and power on this scale are attributes that sit uncomfortably in Indian society. They are reserved only for politicians and Bollywood stars. For now, it appears Modi’s biggest crime was being better than the rest.
FIFA’s own goal
Let’s be honest about the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa. What a terrible idea it was. Yes, in theory FIFA’s policy of moving the tournament to a different continent each time made sense and bringing it to Africa for the first time made even more sense. Yet last month 500,000 tickets for the greatest show on earth remained unsold.
To be blunt, unless you are very rich or very brave, you probably won’t be going. It’s too far, too expensive and too dangerous. FIFA doesn’t really care, it has already taken its cut of the television revenues and sponsorship from the event. But I think when the tournament is over, FIFA must consider staging it in places where football fans can actually afford to go and watch it.
Anil Bhoyrul is a editorial director of ITP Executive.
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