The Bangladesh Premier League continued its downward trend of payment ignominy after the Cricketers’ Welfare Association of Bangladesh claimed that most of the local players are still to be duly paid.
The players were supposed to receive 25 percent of the total amount before the start of the tournament, 25 percent by the time the tournament ended and the remaining 50 percent within 150 days of the completion of the tournament.
CWAB released the payment status of some players on Thursday which specified that many of the players did not even acquire 25 percent of their initial wages.
According to CWAB’s list, only Duronto Rajshahi and Khulna Royal Bengals distributed the 50 percent amount of the players till date in line with rules set by the BPL governing council.
During the course of the tournament, Rajshahi attracted all the headlines for the wrong reasons when their foreign players threatened to boycott their stints in the BPL following the payment debacle.
The players were due to obtain their payment through the BCB after the first edition of the money-spinning tournament saw a lot of uncertainty regarding the payment by the franchisees.
The BCB are yet to reimburse the players, which only meant that the franchisees did not disburse the 50 percent amount of the players’ wages to the BCB.
CWAB general secretary Debobrata Paul asserted that he talked personally with the players prior to submitting the status of payment before the media.
‘If you look at the list, you will observe that we kept some of the players’ payment status blank, like Mushfiqur Rahim and Sakib al Hasan because I could not reach them,’ he said.
‘The players were supposed to get the 50 percent amount at least one month ago but till date most of the players did not even receive 25 percent and some of them even are yet to get a single penny,’ Paul said on Thursday.
One Chittagong Kings player who did not wish to be named expressed his deep frustration with the process mentioning that he was not paid anything till date despite repeated broken promises.
‘I almost played all of the matches. My performance was also up to the mark. But till now, I have not received a single Taka. Our owner pledged we would be paid in full by a couple of weeks after the tournament ended but now that the time has passed, we are clueless about the situation even though the BCB assured us of their assistance,’ he said.
-With New Age input
