New Delhi, Dec. 5: The Indian cricket board on Sunday cleared the faction-ridden Kochi franchise to play in the Indian Premier League’s fourth season beginning on April 8, ensuring that the number of teams in the Twenty20 competition is back to eight.
The decision was taken at the IPL governing council’s meeting in Mumbai which had been specially convened to scrutinise the consortium’s last-minute tweak to its shareholding pattern last week.
“The IPL governing council confirmed that the Kochi franchisee had satisfactorily responded to the notice issued to them by the BCCI, and decided that the franchise would play in the IPL from 2011 onwards” the BCCI secretary, Mr N. Srinivasan, said after the two-hour-long meeting with a few Kochi owners.
Under the new ownership formula, the 26 per cent sweat equity given to the promoters Rendezvous Sports World Pvt Ltd has been slashed to 10 per cent. The remaining 16 per cent has been distributed equally to firms Anchor Earth, Rosy Blue Diamond, Film Wave and Parinee Developers and Kerala-based businessman Vivek Venugopal.