It was 'painful' to shift the Indian Premier League (IPL) from India but with their 'hands tied' they had no option except for relocating the tournament, said Lalit Modi, commissioner and chairman of the cash-rich Twenty20 tournament.
"I personally worked so hard over so many years to build the IPL here and to me it's very painful to see this. But it would have been more painful for us not to have the tournament at all. So we had to take one decision or other," Modi said.
"We tried very, very hard to keep the tournament in India. We had multiple venues, multiple dates. We tried everything in the book to keep it here but our hands got tied and we were pushed to the wall. We had no choice but to move it out," Modi, also a BCCI vice-president, added.
Modi said he was disappointed by the response of the states and the conditions they put on holding the event.
"It is unfortunate that some states have decided to pull out and they are crucial states. Maharashtra for example is a crucial state for us. We had 18 games planned in Maharashtra.
"We were ready to look at it and even changing the games from certain days to after the polls but to move the games totally after 13th of May, that is what Maharashtra has indicated to us, it is just not possible," Modi told NDTV.
More from rediff