Cricket's IPL - In Self-Destruction mode?

I am not an insider of cricket and never honestly will be an expert in the game, but what has been happening with the Indian Premier League is just unbelievable to me who tries to follow not only Indian football, but sports in India in general. It is clear to me that not all deals were done the "proper way"; but still a sporting product, a whole league, has been created out of nothing and now it is being destroyed.

A few month's ago the IPL brand was valued at 4,1 Billion US Dollars, an unbelievable figure for a league which is only three seasons old and was build from scratch. But now after the Modi vs Tharoor Twitter spat, getting rid of IPL chairman Lalit Modi, the controversies surrounding the Kochi franchise plus expelling the Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab due to breach of ownership rules; many questions remain and surely the brand value of the IPL will have nose dived just like it had rocketed earlier. And with matters set to be taken to court if the Royals and Kings XI remain expelled, then the IPL could face even bigger problems ahead of season 4.

It seems that personal egos are bigger then the IPL, the Board of Control for Cricket in India or even the sport of cricket as the game could suffer due to all these off field problems. The fourth season of IPL is unsure at the moment as no one knows how many teams will participate, the new auctioning of players is postponed, so proper planning is just impossible. And this could put off the multi billion investors, who often are Indian corporates who have tried to run their IPL teams like businesses.

So the question is, is the IPL turning into another sign of Indian bureaucracy? At the moment it seems so, then the government and the BCCI wanted to gain complete control over the IPL as it was a booming league plus its then chairman and founder Lalit Modi had become bigger then everybody else. Much to the dislike of numerous bigwigs. And now even the future of the league is in question.

And all this chaos could have effects on other sports too. Potential investors will rethink numerous times before investing their money into a club or league as they know their investments could potentially go down the drain. A scary picture of Indian sports in 2010.