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| May 15, 2000 | ||
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| ICC TELECAST
SCANDAL The Murky World of Mr Dalmiya See Interview with Mark Mascarenhas At its meeting in London this past
week, cricket's supreme body cleared Jagmohan Dalmiya of charges of shady
TV deals. But the evidence against the ICC president says something else.
It is a wonder then how the International Cricket Council (ICC) president prefers to surround himself with associates who suffer from remarkable bouts of selective amnesia. Take David Richards, the Australian chief executive of the ICC and after Dalmiya the most powerful man in world cricket. Last week, following the ICC's emergency meeting in London on May 2 and 3, Richards exonerated Dalmiya of all allegations of wrongdoing in negotiating television rights for the Mini-World Cup held in Dhaka in 1998. The charges had been made a week earlier in Delhi by Arun Agrawal, a former financial adviser to Prasar Bharati who accused Dalmiya of colluding with Mark Mascarenhas of WorldTel -- the television and sports management company -- and, in effect, defrauding Doordarshan (DD), India's leading television network. "Dalmiya was at no stage involved in negotiations with any of the four bidders (including DD)," protested Richards in London, "for the Mini-World Cup in Dhaka." Strange -- given that papers in the possession of India Today suggest Richards himself was advising DD to enter into negotiations with Dalmiya. Not only did Dalmiya negotiate, he even "guided" DD to winning the contract. Never mind if in the process DD found itself spending $4 million (Rs 17.2 crore) more than was warranted. The TV rights for the tournament were
divided into two segments -- Indian (domestic) and extra-Indian (rest of
the world). On March 4, 1998, Rakesh Bahadur, deputy director general (DDG),
DD, wrote to Dalmiya offering a maximum of $4 million for the domestic
rights. Later that summer, DD found itself paying $8 million for the very
rights. The journey of cost escalation was recorded by Bahadur in the form
of notings on DD files. It all began on February 25, 1998, after Bahadur submitted DD's bid to the ICC in Monaco -- a tax haven known for its casinos and lavish parties and, in the cricket establishment's wisdom, an excellent place to talk business. A couple of days later, Bahadur writes, "I was called for discussions on February 27, 1998, when David Richards, MD, ICC (Development) International Limited, and Ehsan Mani of the Council's finance committee were present." Bahadur goes on to emphasise that Richards suggested follow-up "negotiatons with Dalmiya in Calcutta". So Bahadur met Dalmiya on March 3, 4 and 5 in Calcutta. It turns out from the notings that Dalmiya told Bahadur, "DD's bid for the telecast rights was substantial, but certainly not the highest." Why was Dalmiya taking undue interest in the DD offer? A bidder would have to make a composite bid for the global rights of the tournament and then segregate them as per its needs. DD had entered into an alliance with TV marketing firm Stracon to, among other things, help it sell off the extra-India rights were it to win the global bid. As such Bahadur had taken along with him Siddhartha Ray, chief of Stracon. Ray and Bahadur were categorically told by Dalmiya that if DD came up with the highest bid, the ICC would be happy to award the rights to it. "This, in spite of the fact that the DD had never before participated in a global telecast bid," noted Bahadur. Not only was Dalmiya more than eager to help Bahadur and Ray, he was later to tutor them on how DD could improve its offer and bring it at par with the ICC's needs. It was around this time that Bahadur and K. Kunhikrishnan, another DDG, jointly noted, "It is becoming increasingly clear that DD will have to make all out efforts to get the rights." The "all out efforts" clearly included being tipped off about other bidders, a betrayal of confidentiality clauses by the ICC brass. There is reason to believe that there was a direct correlation between DD hiking its bid and certain verbal hints it was being given. As Bahadur confessed in a noting, during "discussions with chairman, ICC ... it is becoming clear that some other satellite channels, particularly Home TV and Sony TV, are also likely to make all out efforts to obtain these rights." Eventually DD did win the global rights for $11 million -- including $8 million for the domestic rights. The $3 million paid for the extra-India rights was not the best price the ICC could have obtained for that segment. Since DD's combined bid was the highest, it, in effect, used its domestic rights bid to subsidise the extra-Indian rights offer. Therein hangs another tale. On February 18, 1998, just a week before the bids were to close, the ICC suddenly inserted a proviso insisting that 10 per cent of the bid amount be put up front in the form of a bank guarantee. DD -- because "it did not operate a bank account at that time on the issue of bank guarantee" -- passed on the job to Stracon. Ray's firm, in turn, asked Mascarenhas to furnish the guarantee. Thus a three-way arrangement between DD, Stracon and WorldTel came into being. Later on, WorldTel got its reward by obtaining the extra-Indian rights from DD for $3 million. The backdoor entrant thus picked up the prize at a bargain price. In a convoluted manner, Dalmiya and his "guidance" of DD had actually benefited his friend Mascarenhas. The curious coincidences don't end there. In May 1998, Bahadur signed the rights agreement with Richards in Copenhagen -- like Monaco, not quite a location identified with cricket. Exactly a month before that, on April 21, 1998, the ICC -- which is registered as a company in the Road Town, Tortola area of the Virgin Islands -- had received a "certificate of good standing" from the Islands' authorities. The Virgin Islands are best known as a tax haven with horrifically private banking rules. After the money from DD -- in four instalments -- reached the ICC's bank accounts, what happened to it? In a country like India or Britain or Australia, the accounts could be scrutinised; on the Virgin Islands, they are beyond public audit. What route do the ICC's earnings take from the Virgin Islands? Do they go into private accounts on, say, the Cayman Islands, another offshore banking sanctuary? The matter is open to speculation. Despite its theoretical wealth -- it is negotiating a $500 million (Rs 2,150 crore) deal for telecast and broadcast rights of the 2003 World Cup and other tournaments -- the ICC seems bankrupt. India Today was unable to get any response from Richards and ICC officials even after repeated attempts. Its website -- www.cricinfo.com -- was as unhelpful. The site "does not have the resources at this time to respond to e-mail queries". Even Dalmiya himself was equally unresponsive. On May 4, India Today left messages and numbers for him at Paris' Sheraton Airport Hotel (no. 33-1-49197070) where he was staying. He never bothered getting back. The world wants some answers. |
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In
some secret corner of his office desk, or so the legend has it, Jagmohan
Dalmiya has a diary. It goes back to 1985 and lists the name of every
journalist to whom he has ever granted a favour -- free tickets and the
like. Heaven forbid if a reporter whose name figures in the journal writes
against Dalmiya; the canny Marwari construction magnate from Calcutta
simply leaks the story about the complimentary passes to the rest of the
media. Less polite societies have an expression for such action:
blackmail. In the (once) genteel corridors of cricket, they would probably
compliment Dalmiya for his long memory.