The on going drama surrounding the Bangladesh Premier League continued further as the members of the BPL governing council and its event management company Game On Sports Management came under fire from the involved parties on Thursday.
BPL’s ticket selling and distribution right holders Shihab Trading International, whose bank accounts were attached by the National Board of Revenue on Wednesday for not paying taxes, accused the Bangladesh Cricket Board of not paying them money for the tickets they had bought in addition to what they were supposed to receive.
Shihab Trading had bought the ticket-selling rights for a staggering Tk 45 crore for 25 out of 33 matches of the BPL played at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium while the rest were held at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. Shihab Trading had agreed to supply 20 per cent of the total tickets to the Bangladesh Cricket Board distribution among its directors for free.
‘The BCB owes us a lot of money for tickets that they had taken in addition to what they had earlier asked for,’ said Salim Chowdhury, the owner of Shihab Trading, who is also the owner of the BPL champions Dhaka Gladiators.
‘That amount is certainly more than what the NBR had charged as taxes for the sales of tickets in the BPL tournament and we could easily repay the NBR if we could get the money from the BCB,’ said Salim.
‘But now the Board is saying that it will be paid by Game On Sports as they had taken the tickets on behalf of them, but I think that’s not right as we had given the tickets to BCB and they should be the one who should pay ,’ he added.
BPL’s governing council chairman Gazi Ashraf Hossain, who is also a director of the BCB, denied Shihab’s accusations and said that the agreement for sale of tickets was made between Shihab Trading and Game On and the BCB was supposed to get 20 per cent of tickets from the event management company.
‘BCB had an agreement with Game On regarding how many tickets they will receive and that is all that they had taken, so there is no way BCB owes any money to Shihab Trading,’ said Ashraf.
‘If any additional tickets Shihab Trading had provided then it will be paid by Game On rather than the Board as the agreement was betweeen Game On and Shihab. If there is proof that they had provided additional tickets then I am sure Game On will pay for that,’ Ashraf added.
While the Shihab Trading members and the BPL organisers were holding a meeting at the room of the grounds and facilities committee they were embarrassed when the members of the BPL security committee
arrived and sought explanation after their cheque had bounced.
The security committee members claimed that they owe Tk 23,40,472 and had been provided a cheque dated July 7 for Tk 13,40,472 but it had bounced from the bank twice.
They had also been given a cheque for Tk 10,000, 000 on August 3 but as they had a bad experience regarding the earlier payment they wanted the organisers to settle the matter.
‘Our first cheque bounced twice as the management told us to produce it to the bank on July 8 and now we have been given a cheque dated Aug 3 by Game On Sports but we are doubtful if it will be honoured by the bank,’ said a security member on condition of anonymity.
‘Now they are saying that everything will be sorted out by August 8,’ he added.
BPL governing council chairman admitted the matter and said that it will be sorted out soon.
-With New Age input
