Bangladesh Premier League clubs have agreed with the players’ proposal to keep almost the same squad while paying full for the annulled season, but disagreed with the percentage of payment for the upcoming 2020-21 season.
Representatives of the 10 clubs out of 13 sat in a meeting with the Bangladesh Football Federation professional league committee Tuesday where they discussed that the players registered in the 2019-20 season are most likely to play for the same club in 2020-21, but mutual transfer may take place.
Clubs agreed that pending payment of the 2019-20 season will be paid in full but offered 20 to 25% remuneration for the 2020-21 season on the basis of the contract of 2019-20.
The percentage is less than half of the proposal made by BPL players, which was 50 to 60%.
The local players who signed for the 2019-20 season were expected to participate in three domestic competitions, but only the Federation Cup took place last season and the league was called off after only one-fifth of fixtures due to the pandemic.
The Independence Cup was also cancelled.
“20% is very small. We signed contract for the full season. We worked for five-six months. They [club and BFF authority] are our guardians. It would not be a good decision,” said Sheikh Russel KC’s national team goalkeeper Ashraful Islam Rana reacting to the decision.
Rana was among some 20-plus footballers who sat with the league committee last week.
League committee chairman Abdus Salam Murshedy said they will take both the proposals into consideration before holding the next meeting in the second week of this month.
BFF will ask for written feedback from clubs regarding percentage of payment once again as well as foreign players’ quota, number of venues and new registration window.
Murshedy also said most of the clubs in the discussion wanted to play the next season without foreign players.
Proposals were also made to reduce the number of venues to four considering the Covid-19 situation.
