JSW Group to acquire Vijay Mallya's RCB: Sources

JSW Group to acquire Vijay Mallya’s RCB: Sources: The chairman of the Jindal Steel Works (JSW), Sajjan Jindal confirmed of the fact that his company would be acquiring a team in the Indian Premier League. However, the name of the team hasn’t  been mentioned clearly but there are speculations that it would be acquiring Vijay Mallya’s Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).

The managing director and chairman of the Jindal Steel Works, Sajaan Jindal said in an interview to the Times of India, “Cricket is the number one sport in our country so there is an idea to acquire a team, an IPL team. But, I cannot comment which team would be.”

He further stated that they would own a team for the promotion of the game. He said, “Moneywise I don’t think that is the issue (because), the idea is that we want to take some credible team so that we can promote sports.”

When being asked about the fact that whether it would be the Royal Challengers Bangalore team they would be buying, Jindal said that would depend on the franchise without giving the tinge of an expression.

Mallya was the first buyer of RCB when he bought the team at a price of USD 111.6 million in 2008. The Bengaluru franchise was sold out at the second highest bid in the auction.

JSW Sports, a wing of JSW has stake in other league sports and teams like, Bengaluru Football Club, an Indian-league team which is captained by the captain of the Indian national football team, Sunil Chhetri is owned by JSW sports.

It is widely getting speculated that JSW is keen to buy the team led by Virat Kohli in the IPL. The company is also reportedly keen to spread their wings onto other sports in the likes of Hockey and Kabaddi.

Jindal said, “We will focus on other sports also. We are looking at Kabaddi, we are looking at hockey, we also want to go pan-India in various sports through JSW Sports, which is the wing of JSW Group.”