CPL 2019: Vijay Mallya to lose Barbados Tridents' ownership ahead of the upcoming season

The Indian businessman, Vijay Mallya is set to lose the ownership of the Carribean Premier League (CPL) team Barbados Tridents ahead of the upcoming season. Mally is fighting extradition from the United Kingdom to India at the moment. He is alleged to have committed bank fraud in India and the authorities are trying to recover the huge unpaid loans.

His never-ending financial and legal problems have also impacted the Tridents whose players are not yet paid in full for featuring in the previous season which ended in September 2018. Mallya took the ownership of the Barbados Tridents in 2016. The CEO of the CPL, Damien O’Donohoe, confirmed the news and also informed that the talks are currently in progress with the prospective buyers.

That has been a big headache for us

Damien also went on to add that the Barbados Tridents will have new owners before the CPL player draft which is scheduled to take place on May 22 in London. “That’s obviously been a big headache for us … (but) that issue in relation to Barbados will be getting resolved in the next two to three weeks.

“We will also have a change of ownership which we hope to announce in two weeks’ time and that’s a very experienced owner who is going to come in, and it’s something that we’re obviously excited about and we’re looking forward to a fresh start at the end of this month,” he was quoted as saying by Guyana Chronicle.

The Tridents’ marquee player Dwayne Smith had earlier criticised the CPL management for not handling the matter properly. However, the CPL’s chief operating officer, Peter Russell, praised the players for being professional and patient in this aspect.

“We just want to put on record how grateful we are to the patience of the players. They’ve been very understanding. For us, it’s just the worst possible scenario where you’ve got to assess circumstances where an owner for whatever reason can’t pay players is just not acceptable really. It’s been a process we’ve had to go through and we’re at the end of the process and it’s all positive going forward,” he said.

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