By Ginés Muñoz
Barcelona, Apr 15 (EFE).- Turning Barcelona into the European cricket capital is what Indian-origin Robert Masih has been dreaming of since he arrived in the city, almost by chance, 19 years ago.
He started playing cricket with several Pakistani and Indian immigrants, like him, in the Parque de la Espana Industrial in the popular neighborhood of Sants.
His dream is set to take shape this summer when the BarcelonaT20 will be played for the first time, with six franchisees participating in 34 games between the regular phase and the play-off round in August and September.
Masih, a former senator of Spain and founder of the Indian Cultural Center in Barcelona, is the current director general of the Federacio Catalana De Criquet, or Catalan Cricket Federation in English, which has grown into a union of 93 clubs and more than 3,500 players since its inception in 2013.
Masih’s passion for the game led the Indian-origin businessman to travel to London several times in 2010 to negotiate with the European Cricket Council, the organizer of a major European league, at a time when the foundation of cricket had neither been laid in Catalonia nor Spain nor, for that matter, on the old continent outside the British Isles.
“Then, the project fell apart due to a lack of sponsors,” Masih recalled in an interview with EFE.
Masih now wants to replicate the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL), regarded as the best T20 competition in the world, even if on a small scale, to expand and professionalize his ambitious cricket project in the Catalan capital.
“Barcelona is a world-known brand. Everyone is delighted to come and play here. And that’s why we want it to be the epicenter of our project. And from here, expand with other leagues throughout the rest of Europe in 3, 4, or 5 years,” he said.
Organized by the Catalan federation, BarcelonaT20 will initially feature six franchises and will bring at least a dozen professional players from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, and England and from the IPL, which will have its season finished by then.
Indian companies related to new technologies that want to expand their business in Europe will sponsor the event, Masih said.
The sponsors will choose the team that will bear their name and pick professional players from the kind of ‘draft’ seen in most T20 tournaments across the world, he added.
The squads will be completed with players who are already playing for Catalan clubs.
They will be classified into different categories that will determine their salaries.
“The idea is that all players in this league get paid, not just the professionals who come from the IPL,” said Masih.
For the recruitment of talent—both economic and sporting—and the production and promotion of the event, the Catalan Cricket Federation has signed a 25-year agreement with Sports Networks, UK.
The company has worked with the IPL and has extensive experience when it comes to monetizing the investment in cricket.
It will broadcast the competition to more than 70 countries.
Cricket is the second most viewed sport in the world, behind only football, with IPL registering over 200 million television audiences per match in India.
However, the game’s popularity and media following are limited mostly to Commonwealth countries.
To give the league a professional structure as much as possible, the Catalan Federation has also hired Surinder Khanna, a former member of the IPL Governing Council, as an advisor.
The BarcelonaT20 will be held at the Carlos Perez de Rozas Municipal Baseball Stadium, on the Olympic mountain of Monjuic, a field that does not meet the regulatory dimensions but has the necessary infrastructure to host a competition of this nature.
It is in contrast to the facility that the Catalan Federation has in Girona, which has a larger playing field but is pending major remodeling.
The interim goal of the league is that its success and investment from new sponsors will allow the second cricket field in Spain to be built in Barcelona, with the only one approved by the European Cricket Council located in Almeria.
The next step will be to progressively increase the number of franchises, much like the IPL, which has 14 teams, and draw more stars from the Indian league and other Spanish teams to create the Champions League in Europe, as exists in the majority of professional sports that take place on the continent.
In its first season, BarcelonaT20 will have a budget of between 500,000 and 600,000 euros (between $532,000 and $6,40,000).
But for Masih, this is only the beginning of an ambitious, long race.
“From Barcelona, we want to create, in 25 years, a professional cricket ecosystem with more than 1,000 employees, including technicians, referees, administration staff, etc., and organize more than 1,000 matches, with a business turnover of about 100 million euros,” he said. EFE
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