PSL controversy: Multan Sultans owner tears up PCB legal notice in public

KARACHI: Pakistan Super League franchise Multan Sultans' owner Ali Tareen tore up a legal notice sent to him by the PCB threatening to blacklist him and terminate the contract of his team in a recorded video.

The feud between Ali Tareen and the PCB has now blown up publicly after it was revealed on Thursday that the board had sent a notice in which they had asked him to publicly retract and apologise for his critical comments about the way the PSL has been run by the PCB or his franchise contract will stand cancelled.

The notice was sent after Tareen who belongs to a powerful and wealthy business and political family had several times questioned the success of the PSL as claimed by the PCB and the way it was managing the league on social media and on podcasts.

In one podcast, he claimed the PSL had now become the fifth or sixth ranked league because of the incompetent people running the management of the league.

However, instead of remaining quiet after the receipt of the notice last month and once it was made public, Tareen has come out all guns firing and openly mocked the PCB officials in a video trending on social media where majority have supported his stance.

In the video, Tareen plays out the apology part in a sarcastic manner all the time lashing out at the PCB and PSL officials and in the end he tears up the notice and says this is my apology. Clearly meaning the PCB will face a legal battle from Tareen, who is not willing to back down.

There is a conjecture that Tareen had started criticising the PSL because he knew it had completed 10-years and wanted to devalue its valuation for the next 10 years.

Sources in the know also informed that the PCB was forced to send the notice to Tareen as he had breached clauses of his contract with the board.

Tareen owns one of the most expensive franchises in the PSL paying an annual fee of USD 6.35 million to the PCB the most by any of the six franchises in the PSL and according to him Multan Sultans has spent 7 billion PKR on PSL related cricket activities.

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