Now, Rupesh, Sanave up in arms against IBL

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Sanave Thomas (left) and Rupesh Kumar

It appears as though the troubles plaguing the Indian Badminton League, still in a nascent stage, are going nowhere. Close on the heels of icon players Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa’s ‘devaluation’ in the players’ auction comes a similar complaint, this time from senior men’s doubles pair Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar.

Both players were acquired by Pune Pistons for $5,000 each, which also happened to be their base price.
The two, ranked 13 in the world at one time, are up in arms over the fact that the base price they were promised was thrice as much.
“In the IBL players’ information kit, it is clearly mentioned that senior international players who’d played in events like the World Championships, Commo-nwealth Games, Thomas Cup, Sudirman Cup and Asian Games would get a base price of $15,000. Accordingly, we put in the consent form we signed that our base price is to be $15,000.
“But without even keeping us informed, the base price was slashed to $5,000,” says an infuriated Rupesh.
“Now, the IBL has sent me a contract and has asked me to sign it and return it immediately. If I do that, I will be condoning what happened,” said Rupesh, possibly hinting at a pullout.
“There are so many undeserving players who haven’t even played at the national level often enough got more than $25,000. We have won the nationals nine times, won international tournaments, made the finals at Grand Prix events, won a Commonwealth Games silver in 2010, we deserved at least $15,000, not what we were eventually bought for,” he fumed.
Sanave agreed. “Nowhere in the info kit was $5,000 set as base price for any category. I’m really stumped as to how they arrived at that figure. We signed our consent forms thinking we would get at least $15,000. We never thought something like this would come to pass,” he said.
According to the IBL players’ information kit, a copy of which is in the possession of this newspaper, “Indian senior internationals (World Championship, Thomas Cup, Uber Cup, Sudirman Cup, CWG, Asian Games) get equivalent to $15,000 (sic).”
Also, “Indian doubles players with the top 10 national rankings get equivalent to $7,500” and “Indian doubles players with 11 to 25 national rankings get equivalent to $3,000.”
Even if they do not fit the “senior international” slot, owing to their relative absence from the international circuit (they have played in only three events since April 2012), they should have been slotted in the 11 to 25 Indian doubles players category as their current national ranking is 18.
Going by that, their base price should have been $3,000. Nowhere in the kit is $5,000 mentioned as the base price for doubles players.
“I’ve never reacted to anything in my career. I’ve never quarreled, I’ve never raked up any controversy as I was too busy playing. But now, this has come to a point where I need to take action,” Rupesh said.
Meanwhile, Yonex was on Thursday announced as the ‘Equipment Partner’ for the tournament.