((HT: NYTimes- Bajaj via Howard Bloom))
Imagine taking an idea, turning it into a possible billion-dollar industry, and having to resign after you've created this athletic monster...
That's what's going on in the sport of cricket right now in the IPL- or the Indian Premier League.
They're holding their version of the Super Bowl Sunday and the creator, Lalit Kumar Modi, is part of a scandal that has brought down an Indian government official. Modi could be gone by Monday.
The IPL finances are now being looked at by Indian tax authorities- think the Indian version of the IRS... and you know that's never good...
Shashi Tharoor, a former top UN diplomat, was forced to resign as junior minister of foreign affairs in the Indian government after Modi revealed that a group of businessmen Tharoor advised on a IN$333-million bid for an expansion franchise had given a female friend of his a free minority owner's share. Tharoor says the share was "less than five percent" and done as a thanks for her marketing of the idea.
Got all that...???
The investigation includes the idea of offshore companies that league owners are using to hide ownership of the IPL franchises.
To put it in a modern context, it's kinda like if Stan Kroenke hired someone in the Caymans to own all his Altitude holdings while he pursued the St. Louis Rams. That owner would be someone that wasn't him on paper, but was him in operations.
And it appears that some of these Modi conversations may be on tape...
But in the IPL, Modi and his family apparently have their fingers in a lot of different places.
Modi’s sister-in-law's husband ((Follow...???)) owns a big stake in a team. And a company controlled by Modi’s stepdaughter's husband owns Internet and mobile phone broadcast rights, as well the guy holds a stake in another team, too.
In an interview, Mr. Modi, 46, denied that he had done anything wrong.
Here's an airport ambush, thanks to IndiaEchoNews again...
He said his relatives invested in the IPL three years ago because they had faith in him, and no one else did.
An understandable point-of-view...
Here's a wrap and an explainer, thanks again to our friends at IndiaEchoNews...
((HT: Indiaecho))
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