Players of BPL will be paid: BCB chief

Bangladesh Board President Mustafa Kamal says that payments of all the players who participated in the Bangladesh Premier League will be cleared.

Dhaka: Faced with the threat of legal action from the Federation of International Cricketers Association, Bangladesh Board President Mustafa Kamal said that payments of all the players who participated in the Bangladesh Premier League will be cleared.

After FICA CEO Tim May threatened to initiate legal action against the BCB and BPL franchises for failing to make full payments to players, Kamal said money would be given and there has been no complaints so far. May had called the BCB "amateurish" and questioned the "integrity of people involved in the leadership of Bangladesh cricket". Kamal said the comments were uncalled for. "The statement is very unfortunate. I have said it repeatedly that it is BCB`s obligation that if any player is unpaid, the board will make the payments. I am reassuring that not a single player will go unpaid," Kamal told a daily. "The impression we have from talking to the six franchises is that most of the payments have been disbursed. But there may still be one or two cases of unpaid wages. We have said it before and I will repeat it now: the BCB will pay the foreign players if the franchises don`t," he added. According to the BCB, out of the USD 2.77 million, the unpaid money is around USD 305,000. "We have said it before and I will repeat it now: the BCB will pay the foreign players if the franchises don`t," Kamal said. "The governing council has recommended to the BCB that, as guarantor, the board should clear the outstanding payments and the process should be initiated immediately," the BCB said. "The payment of local cricketers is also being seriously looked into by the governing council, which has not received a definite picture of the payment status from the franchises. Therefore it has been decided that the governing council would speak to individual players and relevant officials of team managements and take measures accordingly," the BCB added. Kamal said he has not received a written complaint from any player so far. "The most unfortunate thing is that not a single player has sent us a written complaint, we don`t have a particular case in our hands. Every comment is made in general, not made about a particular player," he said. "We have even talked to the players` agents, but once again the name of any particular player who hasn`t been paid didn`t come up. Nobody has written to us. Anyone can contact us, even Tim May, about an unpaid player." But Kamal conceded that BPL, organised for the first time, did have some organisational problems. "From the beginning we have said that it has been organised in a very short time. Mistakes are bound to happen but we are working on correcting them ahead of the next tournament. "We are doing everything for the players` benefit. As an example, I can tell you that we have paid some of the ex-Bangladesh players from the earnings of BPL." PTI