While the world is becoming a breeding ground for T20 franchise leagues, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) surprised all by taking a courageous step to call off the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL) for this year. All eight franchises failed to pay the tournament fee and provide the bank guarantees for the players’ payments which prompted SLC to terminate their contracts, regardless of the fact that they earned approximately $2.3m form the first season.
The bold step taken by SLC came as an example to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) who are also facing similar troubles regarding our very own Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).
BPL, launched in 2012, in a hurried manner saw many irregularities when it came down to the payment. Even the Governing Council of the tournament couldn’t dodge criticism after there was chaos with the playing condition in the semi-final stage in the first season of the tourney. Nearly all the ‘mistakes’, mostly because of too much brotherhood in a professional area, were taken care of saying all will get better in the next edition. But promises remained as promises as the second edition this year was merely organised while the BPL GC has hardly anything under their reigns.
Just two deadlines breached by the SLPL teams and SLC took the severe action, but in BPL hardly any actions are yet to be taken though breaching the laws, deadlines or even the extension of the deadlines are a common practice.
What gave SLC, who is weaker in regards of money in the bank, to take such a bold step where as BCB are always trying to find a new way to hide the flaws.
“To be honest, it was totally our fault. We couldn’t take proper measures when we governed the tournament last season. And when we took the decisions, it couldn’t sustain,” said a former BCB director and member of the BPL GC 2012, Sirajuddin Alamgir to Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“It’s true that we were never harsh, but there were loop holes in the contracts too. There was a time when we had suspended two of the franchises after they failed to pay on time, but what happened later? They convinced us to get back using different sources and lobbing,” he added.
Alamgir complained being lenient with the stakeholders is the epicenter of all the issues. “The structure should be reassessed in order to cover the loops. This is just to make sure that the tournament survives. The way things are going now, it is very tough to run the tournament. Yes, there are negatives, but it also has positives. So the tournament should survive,” said Alamgir.
The current BPL GC sat in a meeting yesterday with Game On Sports to settle their monetary issues where the latter, who owes millions to the BCB, asked to cut the amount of money owed for various reasons.
“You see you can never take any bold decision against anyone in BPL. We can only place our findings to the Board and they will take action,” said Afzalur Rahman Sinha, current chairman of BPL GC.
“We took charge of the Board a month before BPL, so there was no time to settle the loop holes. If we had six months time or so, I am sure things would have been better,” he added.
The seven franchises are supposed to clear the players’ payment within August 2013 and a couple weeks away, only two or three franchises made 50% payment while the rest have made only 25% payment of the salary.
“We have this under consideration. The Board President (Nazmul Hasan) was busy with other issues. We will soon sit with the franchises to settle these things. You see, we hope to be more organised before the next season of BPL. If we feel that there will be chaos, we might not hold the tournament,” Sinha said.
