BPL auction today

When the players' auction for the second edition of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) T20 begins at 10:30 am at the Radisson Blu Water Garden Hotel today, all parties will enter it on a gentleman's agreement, which was also the case during the inaugural edition of the tournament, leading to a lot of disputes.
Although the new BPL Governing Council last Saturday said that they would enter this year's auction only on completion of a tripartite agreement between the franchisees, event management company Game On Sports and the Governing Council, its chairman Afzalur Rahman Sinha told last night that they would go into the auction on a 'verbal agreement'.
"We haven't had enough time to sign an official agreement with the franchisees as yet. We're going into the auction on a verbal agreement with the franchisees," said Sinha. "I am hopeful that we'll have the deals struck by the end of this month and I am confident that the problems that occurred last year are not repeated. As of now, we have to keep the ball rolling," he added.
The second edition of the BPL, scheduled to begin from January 17, will have a new team this year with Rangpur Rockets forming the seventh franchisee. Like in the first edition, the majority of foreign players are from Pakistan, with West Indies and England also sending sizeable contingents. Unlike last year, the matches will be spread over three cities -- Dhaka, Khulna and Chittagong.
A lack of a legally binding agreement in the previous edition of the BPL created various 'payment related' problems and disputes between the parties, which ultimately tarnished the image of the T20 league and cricket in the country at large. Several players were left awaiting their dues long after the end of the league in February.
The payment problems invited international opprobrium as the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) first threatened legal action over the non-payment of players, and then pursued that course in June.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board recently claimed that while the payments of the foreign players were completed, the dues of the local players were yet to be met by the franchisees.
Players' non-payment was not the only ill-effect of the lack of a formal, written agreement between the three major stakeholders of the T20 league. The playing-by-ear approach to the money-spinning venture, rooted in its absence of legally binding documentation, resulted in the semifinalist farce which saw the tournament committee oscillating between Barisal Burners and Chittagong Kings as the fourth semifinalist, something that reduced the country's cricketing fraternity to an international laughing stock. Moreover, apart from the players, a lot of institutions and personnel such as PR agencies are still complaining of not having received their dues for work done during the first edition.
The absence of a 'written agreement' between the parties, as put by the current BCB president Nazmul Hassan Papon, was the core reason of all the problems that took place last year.
"One of the biggest problems during the previous edition was that Game On, the franchises and the players didn't have much to do with the BCB. Whether people agreed to the rules or not, whether the players got paid or not, we didn't have any control over anything since there weren't any written agreements between the parties. We didn't have a clear cut agreement and therefore couldn't take any action," said Papon in a press conference on Saturday.
It is only natural to think, after all the problems because of the failure to have a legally binding agreement in the first edition, that this time around great care will be taken to avoid a repetition. Astonishingly however, the 'verbal agreement' between the stakeholders seems to be the very path the second edition is headed.
The member-secretary of the council, Dr IH Mallick, on Saturday said that the council had included new guidelines in the proposed agreement in support of the players. "There will be a few guidelines regarding players' payment in the agreement. For instance, after the auction and before the tournament begins, 25 percent of the money has to be paid. Before the last match, another 25 percent should be paid and the rest of the money will have to be paid within six months from the end of the last match."
However, with the auction scheduled to begin today based on mere verbal agreements, there remains a doubt regarding the implementation of the so-called 'guidelines'.