With the passage of the 5 day grace period stated by Tim May in his email to the BCB, it would seem that chances of a legal showdown and embarrassment for BPL organizers is fast approaching. In exclusive comments to PakPassion.net, Tim May was scathing about what he perceives as the inability of Mustafa Kamal to honour commitments made by his organization.

by Amir Husain (25th May 2012)

The furore over the case of overdue payments to players who participated in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) shows no signs of abating in the short run. The first edition of BPL, which ended on February 29th of this year, was greeted with fanfare and hopes for a prosperous future for all concerned.

However, the delay in payments for some of the players is a cause for embarrassment for the organizers and the Bangladesh Cricket Board and it does cast a dark shadow over future episodes of this tournament. May 9 was the original deadline for foreign players' payments and May 31 for the locals and apart from media report suggesting that some Pakistani players may have been compensated, it would seem that scant progress has been made to resolve this crisis.


Given the gravity of the situation, The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA), headed by Ex Australian cricketer Tim May, have been taking a keen interest in approaching the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and BPL organizers in an attempt to help the affected cricketers in this predicament.

Frustrated by lack of progress in this regard, Tim May has backed up his efforts by an email to the President of the BCB, Mustafa Kamal, in which he threatened legal action on behalf of the players if the BPL did not honor its obligations to the contracted players (Details of the email were shared with PakPassion.net on 19th May, 2012)

The main points that the email which Tim May sent to BCB President Mustafa Kamal were "If the sums of money were not received by players within 5 business days, FICA would be forced to explore legal routes to recover these monies from BCB. Additionally FICA will further advise all foreign and domestic players not to participate in any future BPL events".

The email from May added "We would prefer not to engage the above measures, but I am sure that you can understand that the series of broken promises, mistruths and general aversion to pay these outstanding amounts must cease immediately. We have no doubt that as a person entrusted with Presidency of the Bangladesh Cricket Board that you will take this on personally to ensure all players are paid within the timeline provided above."

With the passage of the 5 day grace period stated by May in his email, it would seem that chances of a legal showdown and embarrassment for BPL organizers is fast approaching. It appears that the BPL and BCB have not entirely cleared the funds due to the players.

Moreover, given the severity of the legal threat implied in the email from Tim May, no official reply or acknowledgement on this matter has been received by FICA from Kamal or the BCB. In exclusive comments to PakPassion.net on this matter, Tim May was scathing about what he perceives as the inability of Mustafa Kamal to honour commitments made by his organization.

"I have not received a reply from Mustafa Kamal to my original email and I have therefore sent a follow up communication to Kamal but that also has remained unanswered. It is disappointing that a man touted as the future ICC President and the current Bangladesh Cricket Board President has such little respect for the commitments that his organization makes and the pronouncements that he has made guaranteeing player payments."