It is greed as players have adequate money, says BCCI chief

New Delhi, May 16: Shocked by the spot-fixing scandal in IPL, BCCI president N Srinivasan said today that the board will not hesitate in taking the strongest possible action and termed the fixing as greed.

Even the Rajasthan Royals co-owners Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra said they were in shock after three of their franchise players were arrested on the charges of spot-fixing.

"RR is a team that Fights with integrity, Rahul being a front runner. Sad this has happened so close to the Playoffs. This too shall pass," Shilpa Shetty said on the social networking site Twitter.

"We @# RR in shock with this news, coming to terms with it. Will react once we have more info and concrete evidence on the matter :("

Srinivasan in a video conference said that "I am shocked and upset. We won't hesitate in taking strictest action. The IPL Governing Council has already suspended the three players. We will give full cooperation to the police."

"If anything you can call it greed. It is not a case of a player not having adequate money," Srinivasan said.

The BCCI chief refused to be drawn into the possible scale of match-fixing in the IPL.

"We cannot tarnish everyone with a broad brush that would be wrong," Srinivasan said.

"I do not agree that the IPL should not continue...The game of cricket should not stop. We will do everything to root out this type of corruption. But to make a sweeping statement that the IPL is untenable is wrong," he said.

"We acted the moment we have the information that the Delhi police had arrested the three players,. We have not seen the FIR. But the mere fact that they have been arrested is enough for the BCCI," said Srinivasan.

Meanwhile, former captain Sourav Ganguly has expressed disappointment and said that if Sreesanth was proven guilty, he needed to be banned for life. Sreesanth played under Ganguly for the Indian team.

OneIndia News