We had enough of it from BCCI: Sahara chief

Mumbai, Feb 4 (IBNS) Sahara Group chief Subroto Roy on Saturday defended its decision to end sponsorship ties with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its pull out from the Pune Warriors of the Indian Premier League (IPL) saying they had enough.

"The decision we took to end ties was not a bad one at all. We had enough of it. Any relationship does not break on one single issue only. We had a long relationship. It has to do with many issues and has happened continuously," Roy told a press conference.

"There were so many genuine things we had but they (BCCI) did not give heed to such a small thing like opening the bid. They did not open the bid (when Sahara had submitted its bid for the first time). Rules were broken for other teams but we were not given natural justice," he said.

Roy said Sahara had repeatedly approached the BCCI to settle the issues through arbitration and had even proposed an arbitrator BCCI ignored all.

"We even approached the BCCI for arbitration and even proposed the name of the arbitrator," said Roy.

Roy said Sahara India also had to pay 25 percent extra as franchise fee
considering the fact that number of matches were reduced to 74 from the originally-proposed 94.

"Had it been 94 matches then the gate money to collection of advertisement money would have been 25 percent more. We have paid 25 percent more. Differential amount is 25 percent of the total amount," he said.

Roy said Sahara has asked BCCI to look for a new buyer for Pune Warriors at the earliest.

"Money is not an issue for me. But I don´t want the players to suffer. They should not miss this season. We have asked the BCCI to look for a buyer for Pune Warriors at the earliest," he said.

Roy also added that his group would continue sponsoring the cricket team for two-four months before BCCI finds a new sponsor.

"We want the separation to be amicable so we will continue our sponsorship deal for another two-four months before BCCI gets a new sponsor," he said.