The Mumbai Cricket Association has ended Bollywood 'Badshah' Shah Rukh Khan's five year ban on entering the Wankhede Stadium.
Khan was banned from entering the Wankhede in 2012, for five years after a heated altercation with a security guard and the MCA officials following an IPL game in which KKR beat the Mumbai Indians. Ahead of its Managing Committee meeting on Sunday, however, a certain section in the MCA wanted that the ban, which was supposed to end in 2017, to be lifted a couple of years earlier itself, since he had already served a substantial period of it without trying to enter the stadium at any stage.
The committee had offered to temporarily lift the ban on Shah Rukh last year, in what was a failed attempt at bringing back the IPL final from Bangalore to Mumbai. That offer was just for the final. This time, however, the ban has been consigned to history for good.
“It has already been three years since we banned him. The managing committee unanimously felt that his ban should be lifted. Shah Rukh is now most welcome to come and watch matches at the Wankhede Stadium,” MCA jt secretary PV Shetty told the media.
The decision works in favour of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla too, since Shah Rukh, besides being an IPL team owner, is also a popular face of the league.
Khan thanked the committee on Twitter sayin, “My gentle father in law made me realise how lil it matters who was rite or who was wrong. Wot matters is grace. Thnx MCA for ur graciousness.”
