The Indian Premier League's Governing Council will meet on August 2 during which the schedule for the IPL 2020 is expected to be finalized along with other arrangements are to be discussed for the upcoming T20 league which will be played in the UAE.
The tournament, forced out of India due to the raging COVID-19 pandemic, will be held from 19 September to 8 November in the Emirates.
"The IPL governing council will meet on August 2," IPL chairman Brijesh Patel told PTI.
"It is expected that franchises will be handed the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) after the meeting," a senior BCCI official.
The meeting, expected to be attended by top BCCI brass, including President Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah, would address concerns of various stakeholders.
IPL 2020: Franchises concerned over WAGS, local drivers, security, hospitality amid COVID-19
The tenures of both Ganguly and Shah are over but the two have pursued a lessening of the Lodha Committee-recommended cooling-off norms from the Supreme Court, which will hear the matter on 17 August.
It is expected that this season of IPL will have fewer double-headers which would be beneficial for broadcasters. Ways to negate the loss of gate money for the franchises, since the matches will be played before empty stadiums in a bio-secure environment, will also be a major topic of discussion.
Some of the tricky issues to be discussed can be regarding catering and player accommodation during the tournament. All the franchises are expected to send their own recce teams to UAE to check on the facilities prepared and also the bio-secure environment.
Another tricky issue that is likely to come up is whether families of the players would be allowed to accompany them.
"During normal times, the wives and girlfriends, join the players during a specified period but this is a completely different scenario. If families travel, can they be confined to rooms without being able to move around normally?" a senior franchise official had told PTI said that it will be "criminal" to keep players away from their families for 2 months.
"There will be players who have kids aged between 3 to 5 and how do you keep them in a room for two months?" he added.
(PTI inputs)
