BCB protests against FICA allegations

Bangladesh Cricket Board strongly protested the allegations made against them by the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) in their latest Men’s Global Empowerment Report regarding payment issues of players and support staff in Bangladesh.

FICA, in their recently published report, named Bangladesh Premier League as one of the six franchise based tournaments of the world where players suffer late-payment or non-payment issues.

Moreover, FICA also accused BCB for not paying the ICC event prize money to its players.

In reply, through a press release, BCB opposed the allegations citing the payment issue in BPL as an isolated event while completely denying the allegation of not paying the ICC event prize issue.

‘The BCB would like to clearly state that the only unresolved/disputed payment from the BPL concerns four (04) persons- three overseas players and a coach, of one particular team that had participated in the 6th edition of the BPL held in 2018. This is an isolated case in a tournament where more than 170 local and overseas players and support staff were contracted.

‘As per the franchisee agreement it was the responsibility of the franchisee to directly pay in full its contracted players and support staff. Nevertheless, as the regulatory body of the event the BCB had duly inquired the matter and subsequently has initiated legal proceedings against the accused franchisee to realise the pending payment and resolve the issue,’ BCB said in a press release on Tuesday.

It was learnt that Sylhet Sixers, which took part in BPL 2018 failed to clear the payments of their coach Waqar Yunis, star batsman David Warner and two other players.

But BCB found them wrongly accused for not disbursing the prize money of ICC events which they claimed to already have cleared with bonus.

‘FICA’s media release also points towards Bangladesh as one of the full members which supposedly has not paid its players ICC event prize money. This is a total misrepresentation of facts. The BCB has completed prize money payment to players from all previous ICC events including the last, which was the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in England and Wales.

‘It may be mentioned that the BCB has maintained a standard by which players on a number of occasions have received additional incentives from the Board on top of the prize money from ICC events during distribution.’

-new age