Two CoA members likely to travel for World Cup; move raises a storm in BCCI

NEW DELHI: A storm is brewing in the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) over the likelihood of at least two Committee of Administrators (CoA) members visiting England during the upcoming ICC World Cup starting this June.
WORLD CUP SCHEDULE
The BCCI officials are agitated that a considerable amount of money will have to be spent on the CoA members, who themselves had voiced concerns over board officials travelling with the national team without functional duties outside India.
The board members will be paid a daily allowance (DA) of $750 per day in addition to hotel, travel (local and international), all sundry expenses and food bills, while the Indian cricketers will be getting only £125 (in England) per day as DA. With the CoA officials clearing their own trip to England and that of the BCCI office-bearers, the board is set to spend at least Rs 25 lakh on each member on a trip which will be more or less a pleasure outing.
Even by moderate estimates, if five officials from the board - three office-bearers and two CoA members - travel to the World Cup for a week, BCCI would have to pay around Rs 1.25 crore from its kitty. The BCCI needs a functional manager at the World Cup to manage the finances but the officials proposed visit is being given more importance than those of the managers responsible for disbursing money or remittance to cricketers. Those folks are being left behind in Mumbai. The irony is that BCCI's CFO Santosh Rangnekar's trip to the West Indies and a proposed Australian trip during India's series in both countries had caused so much uproar in BCCI that he had to cancel his trip to Australia.
Earlier too, the CoA had stopped BCCI's acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary from travelling to Sri Lanka, England and Australia because he wasn't able to give a convincing reason as to what his functional duties would be with the team. The thinking was why should the BCCI spend so much money just for a member to watch the matches?
Meanwhile, the CoA is looking to be more player friendly and therefore, sources said, there could be an effort from the CoA to revise the DA amounts given to the cricketers.