To ensure a fixing-free and safe playing environment during last year’s BPL, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) appointed ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit to provide its expertise and personnel as BCB had no infrastructure, expertise, experience or a system of its own to oversee such a serious issue.
The deal with Acsu was worth Taka 16.5 million. However, according to the BPL tribunal’s complete judgment report, not only did Acsu breach the terms of the Service Agreement on ample occasions, it also breached the Bangladesh Penal Code.
The tribunal mentioned with regret in the report that BCB and Acsu did share an effective cooperation between them and so were in a harmonious position to deal with any situation timely. The evidences placed before the tribunal illustrate that the BCB had left Acsu to ‘get on with the job’ without realising that the obligations for enforcement of any preventive action falls upon the BCB itself and that the ICC’s anti-graft team was only acting as its agent for limited purposes according to the Services Agreement.
BCB’s carefree approach towards Acsu’s role along with its lack of intiatives to monitor what Acsu was doing on its behalf during the domestic Twenty20 tournament left the tribunal bewildered.
After holding the hearings, the tribunal found that no systems were in place to deal with specific situations if they arose, no discussions with the BCB, no liaison with the local law enforcement authorities or consideration of the domestic laws of Bangladesh. No consideration was offered to the Bangladeshi spectators as Acsu, a regulatory body entrusted with the task to prevent such dishonesty, allowed a fixed match between Dhaka Gladiators and Chittagong Kings on 2nd February 2013 to take place and cheat the fee paying public consequently.
No weekly or daily meetings were held between BCB and Acsu at any point of time as required under the Services Agreement. If such irregularities were not enough, the tribunal also discoved to its utter dismay and disbelief that the Acsu representatives assigned on the ground were totally unaware of the agreement and its terms.
And the tribunal was dumbfounded to learn that Acsu might have even breached the Bangladesh Penal Code. There are a number of provisions in the Bangladesh Penal Code 1860 which deal with dishonest conduct and corruption by public officials. However, there are no specific provisions dealing with corruption in sports.
The tribunal accepted that arranging a fixed match, and having it played in the presence of a stadium full of unsuspecting fee paying spectators who were cheated, may amount to the breach of certain provisions of the Penal Code. The tribunal concluded the issue recommending that Acsu must maintain close liaison in future with the relevant law authorities of Bangladesh.