The International Cricket Council (ICC) has put the gun to the head of the Indian cricket board, asking it to cough up $ 23m (roughly Rs 160 crores) before December 31 to compensate for the tax deductions incurred in hosting the 2016 World T20 in India.
The BCCI, however, says ICC-despite Manohar at the helm-expects them to start a dialogue with the government and expects India to clear past tax dues, including the 2016 World T20.
"This is a joke, unless, there are individuals doing this to protect their own chairs after projecting financial surpluses that now cannot be justified."
BCCI "will pull out of all agreements" with the International Cricket Council if the world governing body for the sports takes the extreme step of taking the rights to host the ICC Champions Trophy and the 2023 ICC World Cup back from India.
The trouble has occurred after the ICC Board had directed the "ICC management to explore alternative venues for the ICC Champions Trophy 2021". The decision indicated ICC's willingness to move the Champions Trophy out of India if the Indian authorities did not grant tax exemptions for the tournament, also known as the mini world cup.
"The matter came up when the ICC board expressed their concern around the absence of tax exemption from the Indian Government for ICC events held in India, despite ongoing efforts from both the ICC and BCCI to secure the exemption which is a standard practice for major sporting events around the world,"referring to an ICC statement released after a meeting earlier this month.
However, even as the ICC has floated the idea of looking for the alternate venues to host the multi-national tournaments, it has not even moved a formal application with the Indian Government to seek tax exemption.
The ICC will have to have to share its revenue patterns and all related papers with the Indian authorities for consideration of their application.
In the worst case scenario where the ICC decides to shift two major cricket tournaments outside of India, in order to compensate for their own losses of US$100m, the stand-off between them and the BCCI will surely get ugly.
