BANGALORE, Feb 4 (IANS): Sahara has decided to split with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and withdraw from the Indian Premier League (IPL) where it owns the Pune Warriors franchise, the company announced Saturday.
With the announcement, the 11-year-old partnership between Sahara, the main sponsor of the Indian team, and the BCCI has come to an end.
"Now after an 11-year journey as sponsors, we can say with surety that cricket has become very rich. Many rich people are there to support cricket with a strong will to do so. So, with absolute peace of mind we can exit from cricket under BCCI and are now exiting with a heavy heart," Sahara said in a statement.
"It was an emotional decision for us to start this sponsorship but our emotions were never appreciated and many genuine situations were not given due consideration at all. We are withdrawing from all cricket under BCCI."
BCCI claims that Sahara is yet to give a formal notice and the IPL auction 5 scheduled here Saturday will go ahead as scheduled.
