CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu police maintained on Friday that it was the burden of financial debt that pushed former India player VB Chandrasekhar to commit suicide. VB was found hanging from the ceiling fan of his room in Mylapore on Thursday evening. The preliminary postmortem report that came on Friday corroborated suicide.
VB, as he was popularly known, was bleeding financially while trying to run his Tamil Nadu Premier League franchise VB Kanchi Veerans, it is learnt. He had bought the Tiruvallur franchise for Rs 3.48 crore back in 2016 and had to shell out an annual franchise fee of the same amount every year. He also had to bear the annual operational cost of more than Rs 80 lakh, including player fees, lodging and travel costs. To run the team smoothly, VB had taken loans from various banks which he was struggling to repay.
A source said returns from TNPL are minimal and most of the franchises are running in loss. "TNCA gives about Rs 2.5 crore as TV right fees to the franchises. Since VB's team finished fourth this season, he would have earned a crore more. He might also be making some money in sponsorships but that wouldn't have recovered much of the investment," the source revealed.
Prior to the fourth-place finish this season, VB Kanchi Veerans had finished sixth, fifth and seventh in the eight-team league in the first three years. It meant that VB was losing approximately Rs 2 crore every year. "With VB running the team without any corporate backing, the debts kept mounting. A rough estimate suggests that he was running at a loss of Rs 8-10 crore minimum from TNPL alone," the source said.
Police sources said that they have till now found records of a Rs 2 crore debt to a city private bank. "He had received a notice from the bank, and as he had accrued a lot of debt, it might have traumatized him," said an investigating officer.
VB was an employee of India Cements, who are also the promoters of TNPL. The company brass suggested that it's unlikely that VB would take such a drastic step due to financial losses accrued in the league. "VB was a headstrong individual. He would always keep his problems to himself. Had he told any TNCA or India Cements official that he was in a financial crisis, it would have been sorted out. There were also prospective buyers who could have taken over his team. He was under no compulsion to run the team," a TNCA source said.
It was also learnt that VB was depressed and appeared to be under tremendous stress for the last one month. The source also cited that VB had drastically lost weight in a short time and had collapsed during a flight recently.
Meanwhile, top past and present stars from the state like
Dinesh Karthik, Vijay Shankar, Murali Vijay, WV Raman, L Sivaramakrishnan and Kris Srikanth paid rich tribute to VB. Rahul Dravid too flew down to meet the former coach's family.
Get an chance to win ₹5000 Amazon Voucher by taking part in India's Biggest Habit Index! Take the survey here