Ex-IPL boss Lalit Modi says Dawood Ibrahim major reason behind exit from cricket administration: 'He took three hits...'

Indian Premier League founder Lalit Modi has claimed to have been targeted by fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, which he insists is the primary reason behind his exit from cricket administration.

Former BCCI vice-president Modi had launched the IPL in 2008 and had served as its chairman for the first three seasons before being removed from the role in 2010. He was later banned from all cricketing activities for life by the Indian board in 2013.

Speaking to Asian News International, Modi insisted that the IPL was free of match-fixing and related corruption, which he claims drew the ire of Dawood and his associates and even led to attempts on his life.

"You didn't hear of a single incident during my three years as IPL commissioner and chairman, nor a single investigation involving match-fixing during my time," Modi, who primarily based in London since leaving India in May 2010, told the news agency.

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Modi further claimed to have survived three assassination attempts by Dawood, the alleged mastermind behind the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, and revealed that his son had been kidnapped in London in 2012.

"He took three hits at me. Dawood himself said this. He missed three times," said Modi, who had also served as the chairman of the Champions League T20 from 2008 to 2010.

"The reason was that I didn't look the other way when they wanted to fix matches. They offered me hundreds of millions of dollars to look the other way. If you look at the first three years, when I ran the IPL, there was no fixing. It wasn't liked by the mafia," he continued.

Hosting IPL in South Africa cost bookmakers a lot of money, claims Modi

Modi also claims to have cost the betting syndicate a lot of money by successfully hosting the second edition of the world's richest T20 league in South Africa in 2009. Bookmakers, he claims, had taken massive wagers assuming the IPL would be cancelled due to it clashing with the Lok Sabha elections that year.

"They accused me of moving IPL to South Africa when they thought it's not ever going to move because they ate the bets up.

"So they lost a lot of money apparently. They wanted me to make good that money. I didn't ask them to take the bet," he continued.