Cricket News: Has Fantasy League rivalry cost Sourav Ganguly his BCCI post?
Roger Binny, the former Indian all-rounder, is all set to become the new BCCI president replacing Sourav Ganguly, who is not expected to hold any position on the board in the future. Roger Binny will take charge on October 18, when the BCCI annual general meeting will be held in Mumbai
Image credit: pia.images.co.uk BCCI : Jay Shah and Saurav GangulyJay Shah and Rajiv Shukla have retained their position as BCCI secretary and vice-president for the upcoming tenure.
Dream11 partnership with BCCI got a heavy of My11Circle endorsement by Saurav Ganguly
When Saurav Ganguly was appointed president of BCCI, many conflicting statements arose from his support of fantasy league companies. The controversy occurred following his tweet promoting a fantasy cricket league website, My11Circle. The company roped him in as a brand ambassador as soon as he was appointed as president.
Criticising Sourav Ganguly’s move to endorse a fantasy company, Gautam Gambhir said, “If the BCCI president (Ganguly) is doing it, you can’t expect other players not to do it. If he says that no one should be allowed to do it, I think everyone should follow that … It has to come from the top. Either we should ban this completely in India. It can’t be statewise. And no one should be allowed to endorse that.”
The issue was also interpreted as a case of ambush marketing because BCCI has an official sponsorship deal with Dream11 for the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“In the IPL, most of the endorsements and sponsorships are from fantasy league games such as Dream 11. It should be a collective decision from the BCCI whether we should allow this to happen or not,” added Gautam Gambhir.
Political pressure with Sourav Ganguly
While some people speculated that the difference in opinion about supporting sports betting companies is the reason for his loss of post, there is also speculation that he was sacked as he refused to bow down to political pressure.
According to media sources in Kolkata, he did not have the slightest hint that he would be shown the door. It is said that Sourav Ganguly must have been under enormous pressure to join the BJP when state elections were held in West Bengal in 2021. TMC was also pressuring him to join their side. However, he refused to lean towards one side or the other.
And now it looks like his upright attitude has cost him his post. It is believed that Sourav Ganguly was keen on continuing as BCCI president or becoming ICC chairman if that was not the case.
While political parties didn’t mince words over the developments in the BCCI, Sourav Ganguly reacted. “You can’t play forever. You can’t be an administrator forever, but it’s been fun doing both and seeing both sides of the coin. I will go for bigger things in future.”
“I was a cricketer’s administrator. Yes, you had to make decisions because there’s so much cricket happening, there’s so much money around. There’s women’s cricket, there’s domestic cricket. Yes, you had to take calls at times as an individual,” he added.