Why Indian Captain Dhoni must be dismissed!
Palash Biswas
It is not only a D company involvement which has inflicted Indian cricket as well as Indian economics, it is about all those free market, globalisation iconic agents, who represent India! National pride is at the stake!If Rajasthan Royals cricketers S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, the Delhi police on Tuesday invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against them and 23 others in connection with the IPL spot-fixing case. Under MCOCA, a person can be jailed for five years to life, why the Indian Captain and other Icons should be spared?
Meanwhile,Raj Kundra, the owner of Rajasthan Royals, has been quizzed by a special cell of Delhi police on Wednesday morning in connection with the spot-fixing scandal that rocked the Indian cricket.This is for the first time that an owner of an IPL team came under the scanner. The interrogations may take place for more than two hours. Kundra is being quizzed because the three tainted players, S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, accused of spot-fixing, belong to his team.
According to the sources, the police wanted to know from Kundra that weather his players have discussed anything about the bookies in touch with them or given him any hint about fixings.
The three Rajasthan Royals player were arrested on the charges of spot-fixing. They have reportedly confirmed their involvement for the same in front of Delhi crime branch.
Delhi police said on Tuesday that the bookies were following instructions from the underworld Don Dawoob Ibrahim and Chota Shakeel.
Mind you,in yet another jolt to arrested Rajasthan Royals cricketers S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, the Delhi police on Tuesday invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against them and 23 others in connection with the IPL spot-fixing case. Under MCOCA, a person can be jailed for five years to life.
Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel were masterminds of the betting syndicate from Karachi to Dubai, according to the special cell of the Delhi police. They are likely to be named in the charge sheet soon.
The police claim the arrested bookies were working at the behest of Dawood and Shakeel. However, the police clarified that not everybody was directly in contact with the underworld even though everything was going as per Dawood's plan.
Additional sessions judge Sanjiv Jain was told by the police that MCOCA was slapped because "the accused persons were acting on the command of the underworld who have a continuous past record of organised crimes".
Meanwhile, the judicial custody of Sreesanth and 22 others has been extended till June 18.
BCCI meet at Chennai was "more perfectly fixed" than any IPL match because it was done "not by the bookies, but by the bosses", Congress spokesman Shakil Ahmed said on Monday amid criticism of the cricket body's functioning.
"People say the BCCI meet in Chennai was more perfectly fixed than any IPL match because it was done not by the bookies but by the bosses", the Congress leader wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter eventhough he maintained that the party would not comment on the issue.
At the AICC briefing, Ahmed did gave hints that the party was not exactly amused over the developments in Chennai.
"There is no question of being happy or unhappy. It is for the sports ministry and for the government to decide. I do not want to discuss it as a political party", he said adding that sports should be kept away from politics.
His comments came in the wake of the Chennai meet of BCCI that saw its President N Srinivasan agreeing to "step aside" till a probe against his son-in-law, who has been arrested in the IPL betting scandal, is completed.
Under the compromise formula, former BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya made a comeback as head of a four-member interim arrangement to run the Board.
More than a fortnight after the spot-fixing scandal rocked cricketing world, Srinivasan had refused to heed mounting demands for his resignation as Board Chief at a meeting of the Working Committee. He said there were no charges against him.
Asked about speculation that Rajiv Shukla could face axe as a Union Minister in the wake of his role as IPL Commissioner, he said that political issues should not be involved in the matter as already a probe is on and one should await its findings.
Forget Srinivasan, here's why Dhoni should resign!
The India captain profits from the incomes of Raina, Ojha, Jadeja -- players managed by a firm he owns. Rhiti Sports Management and its main promoter, Arun Pandey, might deny that Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoniholds any share in the company, but what they cannot deny is that Pandey and Dhoni have been and continue to be business partners, spelling a high probability of conflict of interest for the Indian captain.
It was a statement meant to answer pressing questions on the conflict of interest in MS Dhoni, the captain of the Indian cricket team, having a say in the selection of players managed by a firm in which he had an equity interest. But the 140-word press release put out by Rhiti Sports Management on June 3, in response to the furore caused by an ET investigation, on Dhoni's 15% stake in the sports-management firm raises more questions than it answers. Five in particular. 1. How much did the "outstandings" amount to?
The Rhiti Sports release says the company allotted 30,000 shares on March 22 to Dhoni for Rs 3 lakh "only to secure certain old outstandings which were due for more than one year". The wording of the release does not specify the amount due to Dhoni. Was it Rs 3 lakh? Or more? Arun Pandey, chairman and managing director of Rhiti Sports, declined to reply to a detailed questionnaire sent by ET on June 3.
Regulatory filings by Rhiti Sports with the ministry of company affairs (MCA) seem to suggest the outstanding - if the company's release is taken at face value - was Rs 3 lakh. The relevant document in this case is Form 2.
This document essentially gives details of new share issuance: among other things, how much was the premium paid and what was the consideration for the shares being issued by a company.
The Form 2 submitted by Rhiti, dated March 22, shows that no premium was charged. Further, the column that gives the consideration for which shares were issued is blank. Even the March 22 board resolution of Rhiti does not state that the purpose of issuing shares to Dhoni was to secure outstandings, as the company claims now. "If return of allotment (Form 2) states there is no premium charged for the shares, then only Rs 13 lakh of outstanding amount was adjusted against the issue of shares," says Ramakrishna Gupta, a practising company secretary and chairman of the Hyderabad chapter of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.
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2. Didn't Rhiti have Rs 3 lakh to give to Dhoni?
This is a company that, in 2011-12, recorded revenues of Rs 63.5 crore, largely riding on its marquee client Dhoni. In July 2010, Dhoni signed a Rs 210-crore, three-year deal with Rhiti, which is owned and run by Arun Pandey, a close friend, confidante and business associate. Dhoni does endorsements; his clients pay Rhiti, which keeps a commission and passes on the rest to Dhoni.
In 2012-13, Dhoni's stock rose further, and he reportedly became a Rs 100-crore brand. On a parallel track, Dhoni, Pandey and Rhiti became partners in more business ventures. In this backdrop,Rs 3 lakh seems an insignificant amount. Also, Rhiti's annual report for 2011-12, its latest available, shows that the company had 'liquid assets' of Rs 42.5 lakh as of March 31, 2012. On the same day, Rhiti had trade payables — or money owed by the company, which would be primarily to Dhoni — of Rs22.2 crore as on March 20
3. How was the valuation decided?
At Rs 3 lakh for a 15% stake, the total value of Rhiti Sports was estimated at Rs 20 lakh. Its free cash in the balance sheet is twice this valuation. In 2011-12, on Rs63.5 crore of revenues, it posted a net profit ofRs2.5 crore. Among sports-management firms in India, it had one of the best portfolios: besides Dhoni, fellow cricketers Suresh Raina,Ravindra Jadeja and Pragyan Ojha, andSaina Nehwal, the world No. 2 badminton player.
"It's unusual to do valuation at par value," says a leading chartered accountant, on the condition of anonymity. Adds Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director, InGovern Research Services, a proxy advisory and corporate governance research firm: "These are private shareholdings and the contribution by the new shareholder who is subscribing at par value could be in the form of sweat equity."
4. Why didn't Rhiti buy back the shares?
According to the release, once Rhiti cleared Dhoni's dues, his shareholding was transferred on April 26 — after 35 days of the allotment — to the promoter, Arun Pandey. "The practice of converting outstanding dues into equity shares is neither uncommon nor illegal," says the chartered accountant quoted above. "But it's unheard to see the shares transferred within a month's time." Further, in this case, though Rhiti issued the shares to Dhoni, the company did not buy back the shares from Dhoni. These were, instead, transferred to Pandey.
5. At what price did Dhoni sell his shares to Pandey?
This raises the question: how much did Pandey pay to acquire Dhoni's 15.1% stake in Rhiti? This information was neither put out by Rhiti in its June 3 release nor is it available in its filings with the MCA. As per the rules for regulatory filings with the MCA, unlisted companies have to disclose details of new share issuance. However, they do not have to disclose details of share transfers — who sold shares to whom and at what price — on a running basis. They need to disclose share transfers in their annual return, once a year, but even here they need not disclose the price at which these transfers took place.
Many cricketers such as Dhoni and Harbhajan have business interests in talent spotting and management companies. As for Dhoni, he has a clear commercial interest in picking players backed by Rhiti Sports — Harbhajan, RP Singh and Suresh Raina.
Could this explain why Harbhajan was given a long rope despite his horrifically bad form and how RP is back when he wasn't even part of India's plans all this while?
Despite the wonderful things that Dhoni has done as captain, it is worrying that some of his selections may have not been influenced by cold, hard cricketing reason. If so, it betrays a cricket-loving public that believes these men represent them, the republic of India, the tri-colour, and not a management firm.
TOI accessed documents filed by at least two other firms with the ministry of corporate affairs which show that Dhoni and his family held shares in firms where the only other partners were Pandey and Rhiti Sports. Given this, Dhoni's financial interests coincide with those of Pandey and hence there is a conflict of interest between Rhiti Sports managing Team India players (Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina and Pragyan Ojha) and Dhoni having a role in their selection irrespective of whether or not Dhoni has any direct share in Rhiti Sports.
A detailed questionnaire sent to Arun Pandey early on Tuesday went unanswered.
One of these firms, Rhiti MSD Alamode Pvt Ltd, was floated under a resolution passed by the Rhiti Sports board on March 22, 2012. The company, incorporated on April 3, 2012 had a total of 10,000 shares of which Dhoni held 6,400 and his wife Sakshi held 100. Another 3,000 shares were held by Arun Pandey and 500 by Rhiti Sports through Pandey. Thus, 65% of the shares were held by Dhoni and his wife and 35% by Pandey and Rhiti Sports.
The three directors of this company were Sakshi, Pratima Tiwari (Pandey's sister) and Subhawati Pandey, Arun Pandey's mother who is also a director in Rhiti Sports. The registered office of Rhiti MSD Alamode is identical to that of Rhiti Sports, namely, Flat No. 7514, Sector-D, Pocket-7, Ground Floor, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi.
The power of attorney to do the necessary paperwork for the company's incorporation was given to one Mohd. Nazim Khan, who was also the company secretary of Rhiti Sports when that company was incorporated in 2007.
Less than a year after it was incorporated, Rhiti MSD Alamode in its board meeting of March 15, 2013, resolved to give consent for forming a new joint venture named Sportsfit World Overseas Pvt Ltd. This was also barely a week before Rhiti Sports allotted 30,000 shares to Dhoni, an allotment that the company claims was only temporary.
Sportsfit World Overseas was incorporated on March 26 this year with Rhiti MSD Alamode holding 7,300 or 73% of the 10,000 shares, Pandey holding 100 shares and the remaining 2,600 shares being held by Sajid Shamim, son of the Mohd Nazim mentioned earlier. Given that 65% of Rhiti MSD Alamode shares were owned by the Dhoni family, this effectively meant that the Indian skipper controlled about 47.5% of Sportsfit equity. Arun Pandey and Sajid Shamim were appointed the first directors of this company.
Once again, the company address is the same as that of Rhiti Sports and Rhiti MSD Alamode. The documents show that this flat belongs to Subhawati and her son pays her a monthly rent of Rs 1,000 apart from the electricity and water bills under a rent agreement signed on behalf of Sportsfit.
Another link in the Rhiti-Dhoni chain is Rhiti MSD-N Motor Sports India Pvt Ltd, a firm that promotes motorcycle racing. This company was originally set up as N-Motor Sports India Pvt Ltd by two Bangalore-based businessmen, Nandish Shivanna Domlur and Amit Sandill, on April 23, 2012 with an authorised share capital of Rs 5 crore. While Domlur was to take 49.5 lakh shares, Sandill was to take the remaining 50,000 shares. On the same day, both wrote to the registrar of companies in Karnataka undertaking to bring their respective shares of equity "within a period of two months from the date of incorporation of the company". Both became director of the firm.
On July 31, 2012, documents show that the Rhiti MSD Alamode board resolved to invest Rs 2.25 crore in N-Motor Sports. (Strangely, while the document is filed by Rhiti MSD Alamode under its letterhead and signed by Pratima Tiwari on behalf of that company, the heading at the top says "certified true copy of the resolution passed at the meeting of the board of directors of Rhiti Sports Management". We presume that with so many companies having the same address and directors and similar names, this was an understandable typographical error). The next day, the board also resolved to allow N-Motor Sports, "an affiliate company", to use the words 'Rhiti MSD'.
In turn, N-Motor Sports in its board meeting on August 1, 2012, resolved to change the name of the firm to Rhiti MSD-N Sports India Pvt Ltd, a resolution ratified in a company EGM on August 20. On August 31, Arun Pandey and his mother Subhawati became the directors of the firm, thus bringing it firmly within the fold.
The documents filed by the company, which shifted its registered address from Bangalore to Delhi, do not reveal what the shareholding pattern is, but given the name, the investment by Rhiti MSD Alamode and the fact that the Pandeys now run the show, it is clearly part of the larger Pandey-Dhoni business empire.
And here's confirmation that the fears were not unfounded. Economic Times reports:
Is there a conflict of interest between MS Dhoni the businessman and MS Dhoni the Indian cricket team captain? ET investigations reveal that a 15% stake bought by Dhoni earlier this year in the sports marketing firm that manages him has spawned a tangled web of business associations, raising issues of propriety and conflict of interest in at least two situations.
The first situation is in his position as the captain of the Indian cricket team in all three formats of the game. This sports marketing firm - Rhiti Sports Management, set up by Arun Pandey, a close friend and business associate of Dhoni - also manages four other current cricketers: Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Pragyan Ojha and RP Singh.
This puts Dhoni in the conflicting position where he has a 15% share of the profits earned by Rhiti Sports from managing these four players, even as he opines or votes on them in team selection meetings as the Indian captain. "There is definitely a conflict of interest in this case," says former cricketer Kirti Azad, who was also a selector in 2002-03.
RP Singh tweeted today saying he has moved on. Harbhajan Singh is the other Indian player no longer managed by Rhiti. ET's story also mentions that Rhiti may have been set up with the exclusive intention of managing Dhoni's commercial interests. That is another way of saying that without Dhoni, there would have been no Rhiti. He is the reason the company was set up.
This is how player agencies work.
An agent's job is to get his client -- the cricketer -- sponsorships and publicity. He manages his endorsements, arranges public appearances, fixes media interactions and lets the player focus on what he does best: playing cricket. For his help, the manager gets a 'cut' out of the cricketer's income.
Now, naturally, a cricketer can maximise his income by playing for the country -- that is where all the fame and money is. Current Indian cricketers with graded contracts get a base salary between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 1 crore. This is on top of the additional fee of Rs 7 lakh per Test match, Rs 4 lakh per ODI and Rs 2 lakh for per T20I each player gets. And then there are the endorsements which run into seven, eight and even nine-figure sums.
So it is in the interest of the cricketer to play his best so that he keeps getting selected for the Indian team. But this is where the picture gets muddy.
If Dhoni is a part-owner of Rhiti, it is naturally in his interest to push for the selection of players managed by Rhiti. And Dhoni obviously has a say in who makes the team and who warms the bench. The more these players represent India, the higher their incomes become. By extension, Rhiti's income get higher, and since Dhoni owns Rhiti, his income also increases.
If so, it explains many things.
It explains why an unfit, out-of-form RP Singh was pulled out of his vacation in the US to report to the Indian team at the Oval where he proceeded to bowl what Ian Botham called the worst over in the history of Test cricket.
It explains why Dhoni continued to defend Harbhajan's shambolic performances over the last few years and kept him in the Indian team while several deserving young spinners toiled away without getting an India cap.
It explains why Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina got into the Test squad despite their visible lack of skill or technique for that level.
And all these conflicting interests may even explain why Dhoni keeps quiet at press conferences where he is quizzed about the involvement of a Chennai Super Kings team owner in illegal gambling.
He is not only the captain of that team, he is also the vice president of India Cements, the company that owns the team. He is therefore an employee of N. Srinivasan, who owns India Cements.
So who is Dhoni accountable to? To the fans of the country who want to know whether the cricketers they worship as heroes are clean? Or to his boss at whose instructions he will keep quiet, because speaking out in the interest of Indian cricket is not in the best interest of India Cements.
Dhoni has failed to make full disclosure of the fact that his commercial interests impair his judgement as the captain of the Indian national team. He has put his self-interest above the team's interests. And for this, he should step down.
Will captain Dhoni beat marketer Dhoni?
Sports marketing is a relatively new business in India. When I began my sports marketing company in 2001, I had some vague views on player management and a conviction that there was a business model in it. There have been six cricketers who have been sports marketing stars: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni and now Virat Kohli.
Just six stars: that gives you an idea how tough the business is. A sports marketing company is judged on the basis of its player portfolio — that explains both the MS Dhoni-Rhiti Sports connection as well as brings into sharp relief where Dhoni went wrong.
A bit of recent history first. The 2003 World Cup saw the birth of concepts like TeamSamsung, Team Pepsi and Team Hero Honda. These allowed sports marketing agents like Percept, 21st Century Media and my firm to create packages that had a mix of low-cost and high-cost players.
For sponsors, this was an opportunity to catch players young and reap the benefits later. And there was another aspect: young cricketers asked their seniors where they should sign to get the best service and the best money. An industry structure began to emerge out of all this interest from sponsors, agents and players, and deals were worked out on guarantees and commissions chargeable.
Over time, successful stars began to feel that perhaps their agent was now making too much on commission and they began to look closer home for someone trustworthy to manage their large and ever-growing portfolios. That must be understood to see how Dhoni and RhitiSports emerged. Dhoni dropped his first agent and, after getting presentations from all major sports marketing companies, surprised everyone by signing the very antithesis of the Jerry Maguiretype sports agent: Dhoni chose his childhood friend Arun Pandey. Pandey kept a low profile and functioned from a nondescript office in Delhi. The market perception was that he was Dhoni's man and the office functioned for Dhoni alone.
In 2008 came the IPL. The company chosen to market the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) rights was picked through the reference of the CSK captain. That company was Rhiti Sports. If Dhoni had a pecuniary advantage via this reference, it still did not create any conflict of interest.
Dhoni's friend Pandey managing Dhoni's cricketing friends RP Singh, Suresh Raina, Ravinder Jadeja and Pragyan Ojha? How does that sound? As a captain, Dhoni can influence their selection and help to build their careers. It's true that this is a USP any sports manager would die to boast of. But Dhoni as a shareholder in that company and as a captain on the playing field — that's simply not on.
There must be regulatory bar on playing members, and particularly captains, to have any stake in a sports marketing firm. Even if one assumes that relationships are harmless, they create cliques and divisions in teams. Teams need unity and an impartial leader.
Many blades of 'Helicopter' Dhoni
Surojit Gupta, TNN | Jun 5, 2013, 05.09 AM IST
NEW DELHI: The story of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his family's various business links is almost as fascinating as his cricketing story. A coveted brand, Dhoni switched from one image management company to another, most often to companies in which either he or his family had business interest.
One such company is Mindscape Maestro, a Bangalore based fi rm, which bagged the rights to manage the interests of Mahendra Singh Dhoni in March 2009, soon after Dhoni broke ties with Jeet Banerjee's Gameplan, a company that was managing him until then. It is interesting that Narendra Dhoni, MSD's brother, held a 25% stake in Maestro. Half of Maestro's stake was held by Yudhajit Dutta, an ex-employee of Gameplan, who became a director of the company. But he was removed in November 2009. Insiders say Dutta and Dhoni fell out after the company suffered big losses in a fashion show organised by the firm , but evidence shows that the two have maintained their business links even after parting ways in Maestro.
Jeet Banerjee, head of Gameplan, the company that managed Dhoni early on in his career , said there was no conflict of interest at the time because not only did Dhoni not own any stake in Gameplan, he wasn't as big a star as he is now. Gameplan and Dhoni parted ways in 2008.
The special notice for Dutta's removal says that he was indulging in "activities apparently not in interest of the company." Interestingly, Dutta, who is removed from Mindscape Maestro, joined Chennai Super Kings as their chief marketing offi cer during the second edition of IPL 2. He was the manager of Kolkata Knight Riders in the inaugural edition of IPL.
Dutta then joined hands with Prannay Dhelia to set up Purple People, a sports, entertainment and event management company, in 2009. The client list, which the company has put on its website , includes India Cements Ltd, Nike, Nokia, Dabur, TVS Lafarge, Bharat Petroleum, Glaxo Smithkline, Nivea, United Spirits among others.
The website says Yudhajit has successfully managed ace cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni over the years.
Like the Rhiti Sports Management website, Dhoni looms large in Purple People website. The website also mentions that the company handles the syndication of columns by Dhoni apart from those by Kieron Pollard and Sourav Ganguly. It also boasts of hosting a black tie dinner for the Mahendra Singh Dhoni Charitable Foundation on July 18, 2011.
"Purple People conceptualized and successfully implemented a charity dinner for Winning Ways — M S Dhoni's Charitable Foundation at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane in London," the website says.
The company helped organize a charity dinner in 2010 in Kolkata with CSK on the eve of KKR versus CSK match during IPL 2010. The dinner was attended by CSK players. Dhoni's bat and CSK jersey were auctioned to raise money for Save Our Tiger Fund and M S Dhoni charity.
According to the Purple People website other cricketers managed by him and with whom he has worked closely are Gautam Gambhir, M Vijay , S Badrinath, Rohit Sharma , Piyush Chawla,Ricky Ponting, Munaf Patel, J P Yadav and several other cricketers . Dutta, who is the MD of Purple People started his career with Gameplan and according to his website is "a prominent face in the fi eld of sports marketing in India over the last seven years."
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