The BCCI-backed Champions League Twenty20 tournament will be played this year in India but may not feature a team from England, Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, has told Cricinfo. Modi’s statement comes on a day the English press reported that the ECB, which has been at loggerheads with the BCCI over issues regarding an international Twenty20 tournament, was finalising a “rival” Champions League, to be held in Abu Dhabi.

The one organised by the Indian board, Modi said, will be held from September 29 to October 8 at three venues – Jaipur, New Delhi and Mohali. The tournament, details of which will be finalised in Mumbai on Wednesday at a meeting to be attended by officials from the BCCI, Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Cricket Australia (CA), has received “four separate offers of US$750 million each” for the commercial and TV rights for a 10-year period, Modi said.

The ECB will not be represented at the meeting and, Modi said, the tournament is also unlikely to include England, which “has been unreasonable” in continuing to object to various rules and regulations, including the ban on players from the unauthorised Indian Cricket League (ICL), the share-holding pattern and profit-sharing formula.

“We are going ahead with the tournament whether England joins up or not, “Modi said. “South Africa and Australia are fully on board with the various rules and regulations but the ECB is being unreasonable and continues to have objections to issues like the shareholding pattern and the governing structure. But we can’t wait any longer and we are going ahead. It’s now up to the ECB to decide whether it wants to join us or not.”

A report in the Sunday Telegraph said the ECB was involved in talks with the royal family of Abu Dhabi over a Champions League to be held there with £750m available over ten years. Asked about the possibility of the ECB organising a Champions League of their own, Modi said “they are welcome to do so” but added that no Indian team would participate in that tournament. “There is no question of any Indian team, including those from the IPL, participating in any other Champions League, whether it’s organised by the ECB or anybody else. Anyway, we must not forget that it’s the television revenue that decides the fate of such tournaments and it’s very obvious where that is headed right now.”

The BCCI’s Champions League originally planned to include the top two Twenty20 domestic teams from India, Australia, South Africa and England. With the ECB’s participation in doubt, Modi said a team from Pakistan has been confirmed while the last slot may be filled by a team from New Zealand or even Sri Lanka.

“I can confirm that Pakistan will send a team because even if the ECB joins us, only one team from England can participate, which is Middlesex,” Modi said. “As for New Zealand, Sri Lanka, or even West Indies, they will all be taking part from next year, anyway, when we expand to 12 teams. One of them will send the eighth team this year, if the ECB stays away and refuses to send even Middlesex.”

Kent, the other finalist in England’s domestic Twenty20 tournament, has players affiliated to the ICL and will not be invited, Modi confirmed. “Kent will not be invited but we will be happy to welcome Middlesex. But for that to happen, the ECB has to take a final call,” Modi said.

The dates for the tournament clash with a tour game for Australia ahead of their first Test against India on October 9 but Modi said the issue will be sorted out on Wednesday. Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey, who are part of the IPL’s Chennai Super Kings, which has qualified for the Champions League, are also expected to be part of the Australian team for that practice match in Hyderabad from October 2-5.

Modi added that the Champions League’s governing structure, profit-sharing formula and shareholding pattern, to which the ECB had objected, will be revealed after Wednesday’s meeting in Mumbai but confirmed that the BCCI owns 50% of the tournament.

International Cricket Council (ICC) has expressed concern over multi-million dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) being susceptible to match-fixing because of twin reasons of excessive cash involved and the over-hype surrounding it.

ICC General Manager (Cricket) Dave Richardson said Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) Chief Sir Paul Condon in a presentation at the annual conference in Dubai has warned that “IPL brings with it the biggest threat to the game in terms of corruption since the days of cricket in Sharjah”.

“We are concerned. Let’s face it, the IPL is the first domestic competition which has attracted such huge interest and when it does it’s going to inevitably going to attract the interest of match-fixers and people like that,” Richardson said.

“And because of the interest created, there is no doubt that we would be concerned if the BCCI neglected that part of the game and didn’t make sure that they had very strict measures in place to ensure doesn’t take a foothold in the IPL or any other domestic competition for that matter,” he was quoted as saying by a cricket website on Thursday.

Richardson said Condon’s presentation was an attempt to inform the member boards on what is the current situation of corruption in the game.

“The purpose of the meeting and having the briefing from Lord Condon is to keep the members informed and so the message was clearly accepted by the BCCI.

“There is certainly no criticism intended on IPL or the BCCI. It’s just a fact of life that there is a lot of betting going on in cricket. And that because there’s so much money passing hands, inevitably the temptations are going to be there to try and get the players involved”.

Richardson said the IPL had many cricketers who would not have undergone ICC’s anti-corruption education process and could fall to softer approach by bookies.

“…you’ve got players who don’t necessarily go through the ICC education process… so it’s very important for the BCCI to make sure that those players who wouldn’t know what exactly going on because you know it’s normally a softer approach… How about a nice leather jacket or something… and then they get you like that. So as long as the players are aware of the dangers we should be able to keep it under control.”

On an IPL window in the Future Tours Programme (FTP), Richardson said it was difficult to say anything at this stage.

“Well ideally if you could create a window (for IPL) without jeopardising all other international tours obviously that would be an ideal situation.

“But the fact is apart from India and perhaps England all the other countries rely very heavily on their international tours or their bilateral tours.

“They don’t make money from their domestic competitions. so obviously we have to be very careful that we don’t create a out practically we would go for it. But to say that we’d definitely create a window it’s impossible to say at this stage,” said Richardson.

Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi on Thursday dismissed media reports about plans to shelve the Champions League and said dates for the inaugural Twenty20 event would be announced soon.

“There is no plan to shelve the Champions League. We will decide on the dates of the Champions League after the Champions Trophy,” Modi said.

Media reports claimed that the plans for the Champions Trophy, scheduled in October, had been shelved.

According to reports, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) insisted on having 50 percent ownership and some other boards also threw in the spanner, forcing IPL authorities to drop the plan.

The ICC too was not sure if two BCCI-backed Twenty20 events, IPL and Champions League, could be accommodated in an already crammed calendar. Besides, there was also the fear of Twenty20 overshadowing other forms of the game, the reports claimed.