The Indian Premier League's 13th edition may be entirely cancelled amid the Coronavirus pandemic in the country, claims The Indian Express report.
As of Tuesday (March 24), India has reported 500 positive cases and lost 10 lives due to COVID-19 outbreak, which has claimed more than 16,000 lives and infected over 381,000 people globally.
IPL 2020, which was scheduled to start on March 29, was delayed till April 15 owing to the epidemic which has brought the whole world to a standstill.
According to the report, the franchises are bracing up for the worst and top BCCI officials too don’t seem very hopeful.
On Tuesday, the BCCI decided to postpone a scheduled conference call with all franchise owners to discuss the way forward.
“Given the present situation, I feel the IPL this year might not happen. That’s what it looks like,” a franchise official told The Indian Express.
If IPL 13 gets called off, BCCI will lose the revenue in excess of Rs 2,000 crore while each franchise will lose more than Rs 100 crore. Moreover, compensation for the franchises is not an option.
“Franchises can’t get any compensation. (In case of a cancellation) money is not going to anybody. So compensation is out of question,” the official said.
Having seen the situation in the last few days, the BCCI is not even thinking about the IPL at the moment.
“Nobody has the clarity about the future. We don’t know when travel restrictions/visa restrictions (until April 15 as of now) will go, when things will settle down. Till then, there’s no point (thinking about the IPL),” a top BCCI official told The Indian Express.
“And even if it settles down here but continues in some other country… we are not clear about that also. Japan, the host nation of the Olympics, is talking about a possible postponement. This (the outbreak) is far bigger than any sport or the IPL,” he added.
