Sri Lanka police have arrested the Indian co-owner of a Lanka Premier League (LPL) team on Friday, hours before the tournament was due to begin, on suspicion of trying to bribe a player.
Police identified the suspect as Manjot Kalra and arrested him at a hotel in Colombo as he was “about to pay” a player 9.5 million rupees ($28,700), said inspector Supun Vidanage of the Sports Investigation Unit.
Vidanage said that authorities would produce Kalra before a magistrate soon.
According to Vidanage, the player alerted police when Kalra first approached him about 10 days earlier. Police did not name the player.
Kalra is a co-owner of the Jaffna Kings, alongside fellow Indian entrepreneur Mayank Goel, under their company Sports Commune. The pair took over the franchise earlier this year. Kalra scored an unbeaten century for India in the final of the 2018 ICC Under-19 World Cup before moving into sports management.
The sixth edition of the T20 domestic tournament opened on Friday night in Colombo with a match between the Jaffna and Galle teams.
The tournament has been marred by allegations of corruption before. In January, a Sri Lankan court handed the British owner of an LPL team a four-year suspended sentence over match-fixing. Bangladesh-born Tamim Rahman, owner of Dambulla Thunders, admitted to attempting to influence a player and organise betting.
Rahman received a four-year jail term, suspension for five years, and was also fined 24 million rupees. His conviction was handed down in line with a strict 2019 law aimed at preventing corruption in Sri Lankan sports.
