News: Today it’s India vs England cricket match at Chinnaswamy stadium and tomorrow is Budget Day .
Chinnaswamy stadium episode has exposed once again the underbelly of cricket management pregnant with corruption, nepotism, favoritism, feudalism and what not. The brutal lathi charge on cricket lovers, the vanishing of thousands of tickets in an hour tells it all about important cricketing event staging for the rich and the favored neglecting the ordinary cricket lovers.
When the stadiums are built on the land of the government leased out for a pittance to these cricket associations so that they can promote sport in the country, why should few clubs should get preference and quota in allotment of tickets. These stadiums are not entirely built from private resources. Public money and other utility services of various form and substance go into staging of the event successfully.Hence people in general must have their claim first.
The Cricket event managers should cancel all the tickets issued to the general clubs on preferential allotment basis, and put them for sale to the general public . People should be given a certain number of days sufficient enough for making a convenient purchase and there after allot to the clubs as suitable.
Politicians are managing cricket event as one more of their personal fiefdom. Patronage of the rich and famous in the cricket ticket distribution to the general clubs of the privileged should be banned. They should also stand pari passu with the general public in matters where the resources are pooled from the public money. Nobody would bother if a privately managed event entirely with the private resources indulges in privileged favours. It’s entirely a private affair . But when public resources are directed the managers of event cannot treat without a sense of propriety and fairness to the public in general.
There are clubs in Mumbai too who have been favoured with tickets for the forthcoming cricket matches at Wankhede Stadium based on their membership. Obviously this is not fair to all those cricket fans not so from the privileged class. What if some one takes the MCA to the court and demand a fair sale of the tickets .
When the elections are round the corner these same politicians talk of the aam admi care. But come to ticket sale the Khas admi is taken care at the neglect of the aam admi. ICC too have taken a serious view of the lapses in the ticket sale. Minister Sharad Pawar should reverse the decison of preferencial sale of tickets to all and sundry before it’s too late .The minister should not take it this time with ease. He should bring in transparency and fairness in Cricket Management else the Courts ‘doors will be knocked by the cricket lovers who have been treated with neglect, disregard and utter high handedness as we have seen in the lathi charge on fans at Chinnaswamy stadium.
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