Payment crisis continues
Brothers Union skipper Shahriar Nafees and his teammates met with Bangladesh Cricket Board CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury yesterday in order to discuss the payment crisis they are embroiled in. Brothers Union players have only been paid 30 per cent of their dues so far for the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) which ended on June 22.
As per the payment rules of the DPL, the country's premier 50-over competition, clubs should have paid the players in full by today. In fact, 60 per cent of the payments had to be completed by June 22.
However, players of Brothers and Victoria Sporting, which includes the likes of Mominul Haque, have just been given a third of their dues so far. The BCB had said that they would take responsibility of the players' payments in case the clubs failed to clear the dues. As a result, players from Brothers and Victoria are hoping that the board can solve their problem.
“As per the rules of the league, the clubs should have paid 100 per cent of the payment by now, but we just received the first instalment. There were two other clubs who hadn't disbursed their second instalment before Eid and the BCB stepped in at that point and cleared those dues.
“We hope they can do the same for us. That's basically what we requested the BCB to do in the meeting. They have taken the issue very seriously and they have said that they will take action within a week,” Nafees told reporters at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday.
“You see, this time the Dhaka Premier League took place after two years. And you all know that this is the league that most of the domestic players look forward to because 90 per cent of our players depend on it financially. If the situation of our premier league derails, then it will directly affect the game,” he added.
Many players have blamed the new transfer system -- player-by-choice, where players are assigned set values and the clubs have the liberty to buy any player they want -- for the payment issues. As per the new system, the clubs can make their payments in three instalments.
“The player-by-choice system was introduced because the clubs had complained that they couldn't meet the players' financial demands. Prior to that players could make their own demands to the clubs. During those days players didn't get five to 10 per cent of their payments. But we accepted that because we know that clubs run on donations and they have done a lot for our country's cricket.
“But what's unfortunate is that the clubs still haven't been able to make their payments despite the new system in place. We hope that a resolution is reached quickly,” said Nafees, adding that the players have stopped contacting the clubs for payments since the practice has proved to be futile.
As far as the 100 per cent payments are concerned, Abahani and Prime Doleshwar have paid their dues in full. The rest of the clubs are yet to complete their payments, although the deadline is today.
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