Four companies submitted their technical proposals to the Bangladesh Cricket Board for the media and broadcasting rights for the next six years, said the officials of the BCB on Wednesday. BCB received the proposals from Virgo Media Limited, Gazi TV, Mediacom and Indian Sporty Solutionz and has accepted all the offers for assessment before inviting them for participating in an open bidding, which will be on held Friday.
‘We have received the technical proposals from four companies,’ BCB’s acting chief executive officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury told reporters. ‘The proposals were sent to legal experts and our chartered accountant. Once they verify the proposals, our technical committee will evaluate them.’
Chowdhury, however, refused to disclose the names of the companies that have submitted the proposals.
The BCB floated the tenders to sell worldwide media rights for six years until 2020 when Bangladesh will host at least 31 Tests, 33-47 one-day internationals and 14 Twenty20 internationals. The matches include two home series against India.
The BCB on Tuesday relaxed a certain clause which stipulates the interested bidders to submit a bank guarantee of worth $2.5 million. Under the amended clause, the bidders were given three more working days to submit the bank guarantee if there is any banking problem.
The move was taken to woo more foreign bidders, though it brought no result.
It means four companies, who had bought the documents earlier, have only submitted the technical proposals. The BCB sources said two more companies had also bought the documents but decided against submitting their proposals.
Of the four companies that have submitted technical proposals, Virgo media has certain dispute with the BCB over the rights of controversial Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 tournament.
The BCB was initially reluctant to sell the documents to them, but it changed the decision once the company served them with a legal notice last week. Sporty Solutionz, which was Virgo’s partner in the BPL business, was also a late bidder.
It has been alleged that both Virgo and Sporty Solutionz submitted the bank guarantee from a local bank with the signature of same individual.
It put Solutionz at risk of being disqualified as being a company registered in India it was supposed to submit the bank guarantee in US currency.
The allegations could not be verified independently as the BCB officials refused to make any comment.
‘I have no idea about it [if they gave the very similar bank guarantee]. Our legal experts will now evaluate the proposals and we will act according to their advice,’ said BCB’s marketing committee chairman Kazi Enam Ahmed.
-With New Age input
