Indian team sponsor cancels contract

India's team sponsor cancelled their lucrative contract on Saturday evening after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was forced to drop their logo during the ICC Champions Trophy.

India had been barred from displaying the Sahara India Group logo on the players' clothing because of a product conflict with South African Airlines (SAA), one of the tournament's official sponsors.

The Sahara group has interests in businesses ranging from financial services to media, including a national airline.

The sponsorship deal with the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) was worth a massive USD $ 13.6 million. The contract was due to run until 2004.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) had initially approved a proposed compromise solution under which their sponsor's logo would have been modified by replacing the name of Sahara with that of its owner, Subrata.

But SAA protested, saying green and orange strokes in the logo made it too similar to the Sahara brand, and the ICC changed its decision.

Sahara's decision was conveyed to the media on Saturday evening by Percept Profile, the companies PR agency.

"This is an unreasonable, irrational and offensive condition, which is completely against national pride," said Sahara chairman Subrata Roy.

The BCCI president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, told the media that the decision of the Sahara group to withdraw its sponsorship was "unfortunate".

The ICC sold its exclusive marketing and broadcasting rights to the Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) for USD $ 550 million in 2000.

India is not the first country to face a team sponsorship clash with an official ICC sponsor since the signing of that agreement - Sri Lanka nearly lost a USD $ 3 million deal with Dilmah Tea earlier in the year because of a product clash with Pepsi's iced tea brand.