BCB to take legal action against Shakib?
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury met with all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan at the BCB office in Mirpur today after there were news that the BCB was going to take legal action against Shakib for allegedly breaching his contract to sign a sponsorship deal with a top mobile phone operator.
"We do not have any records of Shakib informing us about the deal officially. Whenever a player makes a deal with Telenor, he needs to inform the BCB about it. We are looking into it. The BCB president has already talked about it and we are looking into it. I can not say anything more than that." said Nizamuddin to the reporters in Mirpur today.
Shakib, who was unwilling to comment on the matter, was however seen leaving the BCB office in a rather relaxed mood after the meeting.
Earlier, there were news that BCB would be taking legal action against the 32-year old all-rounder.
Shakib on Tuesday inked the agreement with former national team sponsor Grameenphone for an undisclosed sum at a time when he was also leading a players' strike for better pay and benefits.
"We believe there was a contractual and procedural breach in his contract. Of course, we will take action against it," BCB CEO Nizamuddin told AFP.
BCB president Nazmul Hassan said they will seek compensation from both Shakib and the phone company.
"We are going to take legal action. There is no scope to spare anyone. We will seek compensation from both the company and the player," Hassan said in an interview with Bengali newspaper Kalerkantho on Saturday.
"We thought it's a kind of 'I don't give a damn to the rules of Board' attitude. If that is the case, of course, we will take tough action," he said.
Grameenphone - which is majority owned by Norway's Telenor - was the sponsor of Bangladesh Cricket Board during the period of 2009-2011.
Hassan said the Board incurred huge losses after the company signed players individually instead of bidding to become the team sponsor in 2015 when a rival operator won the deal.
"This is why we barred the players to sign any agreement with telcos... yet, he (Shakib) did this. And you see the timing? Agreement after stopping play. These are audacious behaviour," he said.
The BCB president also criticized Shakib for his on-field performance.
"We defeated England and Australia in our own ground. Now we lost to Afghanistan. If I was responsible I would not show my face let alone stage a protest," he added, referring to Bangladesh's 224-run loss in one-off Test against Afghanistan in early September when Shakib was captain.
Shakib led a players' strike on Monday which follows increasing criticism from players that the Bangladesh Cricket Board was not sharing its wealth.
The players called off the strike late on Wednesday and started training on Friday for next month's India tour as the BCB accepted most of their demands.
Comments