Keeping its date with taxmen, the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Friday submitted all bid documents related to Indian Premier League franchisees.
Two BCCI representatives, including tax consultant P.B. Srinivasan, visited the Income Tax office here in the afternoon before the 3 p.m. deadline. Ravi Krishnan of the IMG, a sports marketing company whose office the taxmen had surveyed, also visited the I-T office.
B.P. Gaur, Director-General (Investigation), I-T, confirmed to the media that the BCCI had submitted all the documents on the 10 points on which the department had sought clarification.
On April 16, the department issued a summons to the BCCI, asking it to furnish details of transactions with the eight franchisees since the inception of IPL in 2008, comprising ownership or shareholding details, their addresses, entities owning the franchises and their contracts with the IPL. Payments by the franchisees to the BCCI or the IPL and vice versa, profit and loss accounts and the balance sheets of the IPL and the BCCI with details of income from the IPL, the treatment of income from the IPL in the BCCI books of accounts, financial transactions with money received from parties associated with the IPL and details of the auction of players were also sought. After spending about three hours at the I-T office, none of the BCCI representatives was willing to comment on the meeting with the officials.
WSG denies
Meanwhile, the World Sport Group, which acquired the international media rights for the IPL in January 2008, has denied “that any executive or employee has received or admitted to receiving any monies other than in the normal course of business, or that the WSG has used any funds received in connection with its sublicense of broadcast rights for inappropriate or unlawful activities.”
On Friday, a section of the media reported that the WSG head of South Asia Venu Nair had told I-T officials about receiving a “facilitation fee” of Rs. 425 crore as part of an agreement between the WSG and the MSM, broadcaster of IPL matches.
