IPL 2018: Virat Kohli refuses to share ad space with Deepika Padukone for Royal Challengers Bangalore?

Royal Challengers Bangalore had almost inked a INR 11 crore deal with Goibibo.com. Well, almost.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) had almost inked a INR 11 crore deal with Goibibo.com. Well, almost. That’s the keyword here. The deal had to be called off as RCB could not meet the travel portal’s primary requirement, reports Insidesports.co.

Over the years, IPL franchises have provided players to the team sponsors and co-sponsors so that they could do justice to the massive spending. That’s we see a Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and other franchise teammates breaking houses with their shots or Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle and Shane Watson riding bicycles in RCB outfits.

As a part of the deal, Goibibo.com had asked for brand activation with RCB skipper Kohli. The 29-year-old had no objections but he was not ready to share the commercial space with any other celebrity.

The travel portal wanted their brand ambassador Deepika Padukone to feature in their IPL activation creatives with the RCB players and Kohli was not willing for the same. Goibibo.com were reluctant to proceed without their brand ambassador and opted out of the deal.

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The reports states: “The RCB captain, in general, is not opposed to working with other celebrities professionally. However, in the present case, the demand was ‘beyond the terms of his IPL contract’.

An RCB source, however, denied Kohli’s involvement and stated the team got a better offer and decided to proceed with that. The Kohli-led Indian side is sponsored by OPPO mobiles, while Deepika is a brand ambassador of the same brand.

Daughter of the legendary Prakash Padukone, Deepika, a superstar herself, is a Bengaluru girl and wanted to associate with her city’s IPL team. Deepika has been a brand ambassador for RCB in the team’s early days. Back in 2007-08, the actress was romantically linked with MS Dhoni and later Yuvraj Singh.

Kohli’s Bollywood links are well known. He married Bollywood actor Anushka Sharma in a lavish setting in Italy in December 2017.