NEW DELHI: Former Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is seeking to recover around Rs 150 crore from troubled real estate firm Amrapali Group, alleging that he hasn't been paid for years for being the brand ambassador of the real estate firm that is now caught in a financial crisis and hasn't been able to complete housing projects in various cities.
Rhiti Sports, the company that manages cricketing stars including Dhoni, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and South African Francois Du Plessi, has filed a recovery suit in the Delhi High Court against Amrapali. “They haven't given us money for branding and marketing activities,” said Arun Pandey, managing director of Rhiti Sports, adding that the firm owes close to Rs 200 crore to them.
Dhoni was the brand ambassador of Amrapali for the past 6-7 years. He resigned as brand ambassador of the realty firm in April 2016, days after being trolled on social media by residents of an Amrapali housing project who were angry over the unfinished work. The residents had tagged Dhoni in their tweets, asking him to either dissociate himself from the builder or make sure that they complete the pending work.
Spokespersons for Amrapali were not reachable for comments till the time of going to press.
In 2016, Amrapali had annonced gifting each member of the cricket team with an exquisitely designed independent villa at its Amrapali Dream Valley Project at Noida Extension worth Rs 9 crore after India’s victory in the World Cup in 2011. While Dhoni was presented with a villa worth Rs 1 crore, the other team members were gifted villas worth Rs 55 lakh each covering an area of 1690 sq ft. A person familiar with the situation said those villas were never built or gifted to the cricketers.