Former Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) President Anurag Thakur has called for harsher punishments for cricketers involving in “unethical practices.”
Referring to Justice Mukul Mudgal committee’s report – which named former BCCI President N. Srinivasan and 12 cricketers – to the the Supreme Court about the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot-fixing scandal, Thakur, in an interview to The Times of India said, “The envelope containing the name of the cricketers was never opened by the [Supreme] Court, which means the issue from where the entire episode started wasn’t resolved. But other issues against the BCCI were opened.”
Thakur felt that the BCCI wouldn’t have found itself in a mess had it been more proactive in punishing the cricketers who were found guilty.
Thakur added that some former players, who were alleged to be involved in fixing and betting, have become “cricket experts” in media.
“Certain A, B or C players are roaming free after so many years. They are sitting in TV studios. The same TV channels and newspapers which wrote against them on fixing and betting, they have called them cricket experts. So, there has to be some law and harsher punishment for such individuals and activities,” he said.
“If anyone is involved in match-fixing or unethical practice, there must be a harsher punishment because no name is bigger than the game,” he added.
Thakur, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, is also planning to introduce in the Lok Sabha – in the winter or the budget session – his ‘National Sports Ethics Commission Bill’. The bill, according to him, “aims to curb the menace of match-fixing, age fraud and sexual harassment in sports.”
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