DHAKA, September 11, 2019 (BSS) – The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) will run the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) T20 in the name of the Father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to mark the occasion of his 100th birthday.
The cricket apex board has already declared to arrange a two-match T20 series between Rest of the World XI and Asia XI to commemorate the birth centenary of Bangabandhu in 2020. In addition they mull it a golden chance to dedicate this year’s BPL to Bangabandhu.
The BCB president Nazmul Hassan Papon disclosed this in a press conference on Wednesday, also adding that the board will arrange the country’s premier T20 league in its own accord and without any franchisees.
The decision came after BCB failing to resolve the conflict, regarding revenue sharing and others issue with the franchisees.
“The national will observe the 100th birthday of Bangabandhu next year. To pay homage we will run the tournament in Bangabandhu’s name and won’t hand it to the franchises,” Papon said here on Wednesday.
“You can think of the Big Bash and the same format will be used. This time it will be Bangabandhu BPL. If there are any sponsors, Bangabandhu’s name will come first when naming the tournament.
“The first cycle of the tournament has already been ended and we were to strike a new deal with the franchisees. We talked to them but they have quite a few demands which we have seen in the media.
Their reactions were also something that we noticed. However those demands are totally in conflict with our main module of the tournament. We were not able to accept their demands in any way,” he added.
“Meanwhile some of the franchisees also don’t prefer that the BPL to take place in this year since two tournaments in a single year will put a lot of pressure on them.
“After considering everything we have decided to run BPL ourselves without taking any franchises. Revenue sharing is what actually creates the main conflict as BCB is reluctant to share it.”
BCB president explained: “Revenue sharing is not possible. If they give us BDT 80 crore, we will give them BDT 40 crore. In the past, participation fee was BDT 8 crore but now we will be allowing the interested team to pay only BDT 1 crore as participation fee. What more they want!”
“What we want that who will come in this tournament will come for the betterment of the BPL and players, not for business. There is no score for business here.”
The BPL franchisees also termed this tournament as non-profitable for which Papon also came down heavily on them.
“If BPL is loss project then they won’t rope in a player for BDT 4 crore when he is worth for BDT 80 lakh. How can they do it, if it is loss project for them?”
“The BCB will do everything and it’s the first step. We might take sponsors and if someone wants to sponsor a team, they can come.
The president also confirmed that teams will carry the names of their cities in case of name changes.
“BCB will manage everything but the team will be as they were earlier. The players’ transportation and accommodation will be managed by us. This will make others happy and those franchisees who were not willing to play this year will be happy. Those who are thinking of financial loss will also be happy.”