nationalities who have competed in the IPL; these include England's Owais Shah, Azhar Mahmood and Moeen Ali, Australia's Usman Khawaja, South Africa's Imran Tahir and the American Ali Khan. England and Wales Cricket Board Because the inaugural IPL season coincided with the County Championship season as well as New Zealand's tour of England, the ECB and county cricket clubs raised their concerns to the BCCI regarding overseas players. The ECB made it abundantly clear that they would not sign No Objection Certificates for players—a prerequisite for playing in the IPL. Chairmen of the county clubs also made it clear that players contracted to them were required to fulfil their commitment to their county. As a result of this, Dimitri Mascarenhas was the only English player to have signed with the IPL for the 2008 season. A result of the ECB's concerns about players joining the IPL, was a proposed radical response of creating their own Twenty20 tournament that would be similar in structure to the IPL. The league – titled the Twenty20 English Premier League — would feature 21 teams in three groups of seven and would occur towards the end of the summer season. The ECB enlisted the aid of Texas billionaire Allen Stanford to launch the proposed league. Stanford was the brain behind the successful Stanford 20/20, a tournament that has run twice in the West Indies. On 17 February 2009, when news of the fraud investigation against Stanford became public, the ECB and WICB withdrew from talks with Stanford on sponsorship. On 20 February the ECB announced it has severed its ties with Stanford and cancelled all contracts with him. Financial controversies About tax exemption status A controversy was triggered when the Centre gave away potential revenue of 45 crore by granting exemption to International Cricket Council (ICC) on the revenue generated from the recently concluded World Cup Cricket Tournament. In connection the PIL was filed by Shiv Sena leader Subhash Desai seeking a direction to the Maharashtra government and the Income Tax Department to recover entertainment tax from IPL. He also asked the petitioner to make Sharad Pawar a party if he wanted to make allegations against him as he headed the apex cricketing body two years ago. In August 2011, the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that the Income Tax Department is probing allegations of financial irregularities and "criminal activities" against some of the