Why India's traders' body is opposing IPL title sponsor

CAIT is against BCCI selecting Dream 11 as the sponsor of IPL 2020 since it has Chinese company Tencent Global as one of its major stakeholders.

Traders' body CAIT on Wednesday wrote to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) raising objections over the Indian Premier League's title sponsor reportedly having stakeholders from China.

In a letter to BCCI president Saurav Ganguly, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said: "We are deeply pained to note that now Dream 11 has been chosen as sponsor of IPL 2020 which has Chinese company Tencent Global as one of the major stakeholders.”

"We are of the considered opinion that awarding sponsorship to Dream 11 is nothing but a bypass route to neglect the sentiments and feelings prevailing among the people of India against China for its regular attempts to invade the interests of India," said CAIT, which is spearheading the campaign to boycott Chinese goods.

Fantasy gaming platform Dream11 on Tuesday won the Indian Premier League (IPL) title sponsorship rights with a bid of Rs 222 crore, replacing Chinese mobile phone company Vivo for a four and a half month deal.

Dream11 has been one of the IPL sponsors for a couple of years now.

Vivo and the BCCI suspended a Rs 440 crore-per-year deal for this season owing to the border stand-off between India and China.

The IPL, which, moved out of India due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year, starts on September 19 in the UAE.

There are certain questions about Chinese company Tencent's investment in Dream11, but one of the BCCI insiders privy to the development said that it is less than 10 per cent.

Dream11 is an Indian company founded by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth.