New Delhi, Jan 7 (IANS) The Indian Boxing Federation (IBF) will take help from the cricket board in its bid to start an Indian Premier League (IPL)-style boxing series in 2011.
IBF secretary-general P.K. Muralidharan Raja said Thursday that the national federation will meet criket board officials to understand the business model of the highly successful Twenty20 League.

“I will meet board secretary Ratnakar Shetty, and IPL supremo Lalit Modi has also assured us help. We will take advice from them on how to go about in creating a successful sports league. The IPL is a classic example for us and we are studying the different aspects of the tournament,” he said.

Raja told IANS that the event, which will be known as Indian Boxing Series (IBS), will start early 2011.

“We are planning to start IBS with six cities and then expand gradually. Lot of corporates, including Videocon (who also own a franchiese for the World Series), have shown interest in this domestic tournament. We wanted to start the league this year. But the world body asked us to shift it to next year because this year the World Series starts in September and then we have the Asian Games. So there was no slot available and we had to push it to next year,” he said.

Raja also said that the IBF is looking for marketing agents and will float tenders in the next couple of days.

“Lot of companies have shown interest to be our marketing partner. So we have decided to float tenders and will have them for a four-year term,” he said.