Sahara withdraws sponsorship of Indian Cricket team

In a major landmark development today, Sahara India has withdrawn their sponsorship to the Indian Cricket team and left Pune Warriors ownerless as they have permanently withdrawn all forms of investment on cricket under BCCI. The decision has come as a result of a straight denial by BCCI to replace the injured captain of Pune Warriors , Yuvraj Singh for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League. Sahara India has further requested BCCI to immediately transfer the ownership of Pune Warriors to some other interested party so that IPL does not suffer loss of another team after Kochi Tuskers were ruled out of contention for participating in the upcoming IPL.

According to the leading newspapers, Sahara India paid close to Rs 3.5 crore per international match to have their logo displayed on Team India jersey. Sahara, which has been a longtime sponsor of Team India had signed a new deal of four years worth hundred’s of crores on July 1 2010.

” After an 11-year journey as sponsors, we can say with surety that cricket has become very rich. Many rich people are there to support cricket with a strong will to do so. So, with absolute peace of mind we can exit from cricket under BCCI and are exiting with a heavy heart,” Sahara India said in a statement.

“It was an emotional decision for us to start this sponsorship but our emotions were never appreciated and many genuine situations were not given due consideration at all,” the statement read.

Sahara has had a bitter-sweet relationship with the BCCI for a very long time. Sahara had earlier expressed their willingness to enter the cash rich IPL in the very first season. However due to some small technicalities, they were disqualified from the auction process. Further, with Sahara India finally entering the mix of business,sports and entertainment a year ago, they had provided a bid based on calculations that around 90 matches would be played. However BCCI decided to shorten the version of IPL which resulted in financial losses for the owners.

However the refusal to allow Sahara India an addition of the price of Yuvraj Singh for today’s Premier League auction was the last nail in the coffin which permanently shattered the relationship between BCCI and SAHARA.

The initial reactions are a little surprising with most Team India fans lauding the Sahara Group for their tough stance against BCCI who are largely seen by the public as just a money making body and not interested in the overall development of the sport.