CSK owner N Srinivasan rigged IPL 2009 auction? Lalit Modi makes BIG claims

Lalit Modi, founder of the Indian Premier League (IPL), has slammed Chennai Super Kings (CSK) owner N Srinivasan and made some serious allegations. Modi and Srinivasan have been at the loggerheads for long. Modi levelled serious charges, saying the Chennai owner used to rig IPL auctions and bring in local umpires for CSK's home games. 

Speaking on a YouTube podcast, Modi said, "He (N Srinivasan) didn’t like IPL, he didn’t think IPL will work, but when it started to work, everybody got on the bandwagon. He was member and secretary of the board also, so he was the biggest adversary of mine. I went up against him, so he did many things, umpire fixing, he said, ‘I did it'.” 

“I accused him for it. He would change the umpire and I didn’t think two things about it. But then I realised he is putting Chennai umpire in Chennai games, it’s an issue for me. That’s called fixing, so when I tried to expose those, he went totally against me,” he further revealed.

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Modi added, "Yes, that I did because Srinivasan said I want Flintoff. But when you are trying to do an event like IPL and I did it single-handedly, you need to remove every thorn, what is bigger for the game. Every player is only for three months."

In IPL 2009 auction, the former England all-rounder Flintoff was roped in by the Dhoni-led CSK franchise for INR 75 million (INR 7.5 crore). The former English captain only played three matches in the cash-rich league, scoring 62 runs and claiming two scalps. 

Talking about Srinivasan-led CSK, the five-time IPL champions were banned for two years on account of spot-fixing after the owner's son-in-law, Gurnath Meiyappan, was arrested in 2013 due to his involvement in betting and trading of inside information to bookies during the league. 

CSK had a good outing in the just-concluded two-day IPL 2025 mega auction, bagging new players such as Noor Ahmed, Sam Curran, Rahul Tripathi, R Ashwin, Khaleel Ahmed, etc.