The Bangladesh Cricket Board is all set to increase its annual grants for the Dhaka Premier League clubs in manifold in an attempt to lure the councillors in the forthcoming election, it was alleged.
The Dhaka-based clubs are expected to play a bigger role in the long overdue election, currently suspended because of a legal tangle. However, it is expected the legal matter will be solved soon and the BCB will go for an election, which will attract many high-profile candidates.
If the constitution of 2012 is upheld, which was legally challenged by two former councillors, the top six clubs in the Dhaka Premier League will have two councillors each, which made the aspiring candidates a fan of club-based cricket culture.
In the BCB budget for the ongoing season it was earlier proposed that each club will get only Tk 5 lakh as BCB grant, but at the end of season the demand rose 10 times high.
The clubs are now bargaining for as many as Tk 50 lakh grant and sources from both the clubs and the BCB confirmed it will definitely be not less than Tk 40 lakh.
‘Though it is still not decided but it won’t be less than Tk 35 lakh,’ Ismail Haider, a member of the BCB’s ad hoc committee, told New Age on Saturday. ‘I am quoting this figure as that was the money we had given to the clubs in the last edition.’
The main argument of the clubs is that they
received Tk 35 lakh last year, so it can be easily Tk 40 lakh this season. However, insiders pointed out that last year BCB only gave the clubs Tk 35 lakh as compensation for taking their players for the Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 tournament.
But unlike the previous season, no players are now contracted with the clubs as the players’ recruitment process for the forthcoming league is yet to be completed. As the players are not contracted with the clubs, the question of compensation from the BPL funds is also irrelevant and any grant beyond the budgetary allocation can now be called only an ‘election gift’.
This is what exactly the argument of former BCB director Dewan Shafiul Arefin, who is backing the organisers against current BCB president Nazmul Hasan.
‘Why should the BCB pay this money to the clubs,’ asked Tutul. ‘The clubs were never entitled to any such grant earlier but what is so special now that they need to be pleased.’
‘BCB will have to bear the consequences in future if this practice starts to develop,’ he added.
-With New Age input
