Tom Moffat, the CEO of the World Cricketers’ Association (WCA), has blasted the BPL for being “a repeat offender” in failing to pay the players on time. The reaction comes a day after Durbar Rajshahi’s overseas players boycotted their BPL match on Sunday because of non-payment of dues.
Even Rajshahi’s captain Taskin Ahmed had joked after the match that he hoped the cheques issued to the Bangladeshi players, hours before the match, wouldn’t bounce like the pitch. The BCB’s media chairman Iftekhar Rahman said that the board is planning to take legal action against the Rajshahi franchise.
On Monday, Ryan Burl and Aftab Alam, two of Rajshahi’s overseas players, appeared for the team’s last league match against Sylhet Strikers. It is however not clear whether the franchise owner Shafique Rahman has paid them fully yet.
Moffat expressed his shock on the matter, and called the lack of payment unacceptable.
“It’s disappointing to hear about more non-payment issues in the Bangladesh Premier League, which has been a repeat offender over a number of years, ” Moffat told ESPNcricinfo. “These issues are unacceptable, they aren’t getting better, and it’s the players who make the event that are impacted. In any league that is officially sanctioned, players should have confidence that their contracts have some basic protections and minimum standards in them, and that they can be enforced efficiently.
“The game is not currently capable of solving transnational issues like this at the moment, and that needs to change if it wants to continue to claim to be a leading global sport in 2025.”
The BPL’s first two editions – in 2012 and 2013 – were mired by non-payment issues, with many players remaining unpaid by the franchises. The BCB even stopped the tournament for a season after there were corruption scandals.
The payment issue cropped up this year after Rajshahi’s local players boycotted a training session last week, after going totally unpaid for the first two weeks of the tournament. Rajshahi reportedly also initially failed to pay their team hotel in Chattogram, with their owner Rahman getting into trouble with hotel authorities. They also had booking issues in Dhaka where they had to change hotels suddenly.
Mohammad Isam is ESPNcricinfo’s Bangladesh correspondent. @isam84
Source: ESPN Crickinfo