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CWG Organising Committee defends its broadcasting rights deal | | The Commonwealth Games Organising Committee on Thursday defended its broadcasting rights deal with Fast Track despite a high commission being paid to them. The
Organising Committee said the UK Company had doubled the revenue target. The
Comptroller
and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its interim report has pointed out that
the Fast Track was preferred over Sports Marketing and Management (SMAM) despite
a high commission, and thus, it led to revenue loss. SMAM had offered its services
for 12.5 percent while Fast Track offered 15 percent. Organising Committee secretary
general Lalit Bhanot said it was a considered decision to award the deal to Fast
Track as they did not want to give too many contracts to SMAM, which already had
bagged the sponsorship contract. "Fast Track is a well-known company in this field
and we have to ensure that company which has the experience is given the job.
They had done it in Melbourne and other Commonwealth Games. It was a very wise
that we did not put all the eggs in one basket," Bhanot said. "Fast Track has
almost doubled the revenue we targetted. I think it's fully justified and a proper
procedure was followed and it was a decision taken by the Board that not to give
both the contract to one firm despite the fact that they were charging less,"
he added. "But now the end result is that we have achieved double the target...
we have earned more," he said. The Organising Committee had recently scrapped
its sponsorship deal with SMAM on grounds of 'non-performance'. An Australian
firm has refuted it by saying charges against it are "imaginary". The CAG report
has also alleged that high profile officials such CWG chief Mike Fennel and CEO
Mike Hooper were involved in various discrepancies. Hooper refused to comment
on the development. "I have not seen the CAG report myself. I have seen only media
reports. I will ask OC to get us a copy of the CAG report. Will comment only after
seeing it," Hooper said. |
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