Rangpur Riders and Sylhet Royals are likely to be retained for the third edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) which will be held in completely new system. Those two franchisees had little amount of outstanding dues compared to the other five franchisees that raises their chances. The seven franchisees had owed overall Tk. 69 crore to the BCB of which Chittagong Kings had the highest amount of outstanding dues, almost Tk. 14 crore. Rangpur and Sylhet on the other hand had dues of Tk. 5.73 crore and Tk. 7 crore respectively which prompted BCB to consider them once again. The owner of the two franchisees however had a series of discussion with the BCB in retaining the ownership and the board also believed that they could clear the amount ahead of starting the new edition, sources said.
The new edition of BPL is scheduled to be held from November 22 to December 15 after two years gap as the first two editions were marred by payment fiasco and match fixing issues. The BCB ran an advertisement asking the interested corporate houses and organisation to submit their expression of interest (EOI). The deadline of submitting the EOI ends today with BCB getting a huge response.
Country’s leading corporate house Beximco Group has submitted the EOI for buying Dhaka, confirmed an official of Beximco.
BCB director Dr IH Mallick said, “Our target is to confirm five franchisees. We’ll increase the number of the franchisees gradually,” he said adding that the gate is still open to the old franchisees if they clear the outstanding amount. “If they could clear the amount, they would join and in that case we’ll go with seven franchisees.”
He however couldn’t clear exactly how many parties expressed their interest but some of the renowned corporate houses assured the BCB that they would take the ownership. The BCB is expected to finalise about the number and the name of the franchisees by the end of this month.
Apart from Beximco, other houses such as Prime Bank, DBL Group, Hamim Group, Summit Group, Asian TV Group are likely to buy BPL teams.
The BCB had opted for a fresh tender for a period of four years from 2015 to 2018, after the contracts with the previous owners were terminated. The BCB will invite new franchises from the regional teams of Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Sylhet. A realistic payment structure would be employed in order to make the tournament sustainable.
The BCB however had no any pending financial issues with Game On (Event management company that managed the first two editions). But Channel 9 retained the media rights for the coming four years. The BCB’s legal department is handling the pending financial issues with the former franchise owners.
The board has already contacted the other boards to send their players to take part in the BPL.