BCCI to stay firm on player endorsement caps

The Cricket Board emphasised on Wednesday that a change in the policy taken to cap players' endorsements at its last Working Committee meeting was to stay in spite of the displeasure expressed by the players' sponsors.

"We have streamlined the players' endorsement policy which was not there in the past unlike in other countries like Australia. We want to take it forward," BCCI Vice-President Lalit Modi said.

Modi said this in the presence of its marketing partner for the forthcoming off-shore series in Ireland and Scotland, PDM Sports, and CEO of the Future Group, Kishore Biyani, who are sponsoring the matches.

The Board's working committee had decided that a player can endorse not more than three sponsors/products and no sponsor can contract more than two players at a time.

It has led to a lot of debate and heartburns with the sponsors wanting a meeting with the BCCI's powers-that-be but the Board has made it clear that it would talk only to the players, if they ask for it, on the matter.

Incidentally, PDM Sports is a wing of Percept D' Mark who are the agents of three current Indian players - Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and S Sreesanth.