Rangpur clear 2013 dues - BCB

BCB president Nazmul Hassan has said the owners of the Rangpur franchise from the 2013 BPL have cleared their dues and can now bid for a team in this year's tournament. While the sum was not mentioned in the press briefing, ESPNcricinfo has learned that Rangpur's due amount was around Tk 1.5 crore (USD 192,802).

Flora Limited, which had bought the Rangpur franchise in December 2012, will join 11 new enterprises that submitted their expression of interest (EOI) on August 17. The next step for the BPL governing council will be to send a letter to the 12 interested parties by September 1, asking them to pay Tk 5.5 crore (approx USD 700,000).

The money will be divided into a pay order worth Tk 1 crore while the remaining Tk 4.5 crore will be a bank guarantee for player payment. There have been claims of players not getting their earnings on time in previous editions of the BPL and the BCB feels this arrangement keeps all parties well-looked after.

"Among the old franchises, Rangpur have cleared their due amount," Hassan said. "So now we are taking 12 enterprises under consideration for new franchise ownership. We will give them a letter on August 30 or September 1 to deposit to us Tk 1 crore (approx USD 100,000) as pay order and Tk 4.5 crore (USD 600,000) as bank guarantee, a total of Tk 5.5 crore.

"The bank guarantee amount is for players' payment. There won't be any more risk if we take the Tk 5.5 crore, both with local and foreign players. There won't be problem similar to the last two editions."

Hassan hinted that there might be eight teams in the BPL in 2015. He also added that paying the money would not guarantee a franchise. The new owners must show they are dedicated to the sport, and are not just looking at the BPL as "a business venture"

"We will scrutinise the offers," Hassan said. "It won't just be about paying the money. If the older ones pay us, the list will be bigger than the 12 existing applicants. This time we will not consider any company who are eyeing up a business venture at the BPL.

"We will keep those companies that have strong financial background, are interested in sports, have spent money in different tournaments in the past and are interested in financing for the sake of cricket. We might increase the number of teams if we see some sound investors are coming forward."

The BPL governing council are not ruling out the possibility of more old franchises meeting their dues and joining the new applicants.

"We will wait till August 27 for the old franchises to pay their past dues," Hassan said. "Right now, I don't want to hear the names of those old franchises who didn't pay us previous dues. I don't know if it would be ethical to reconsider old franchises, but past dues will go against them. But since we are taking bank guarantee on players payment, there is no risk involved. In that case what happened in the past may not get priority.

"Five companies are still to pay Tk 36.81 crore (approx USD 4.7 million). The Sylhet franchise have almost Tk 8 crore (approx USD 1.02 million), Barisal Tk 6.5 crore (approx USD 835,500), Khulna around Tk 8.19 crore (approx USD 1.05 million), Rajshahi Tk 6.09 crore (approx USD 780,000) and Chittagong Tk 7.45 crore (approx USD 957,500). There may be discrepancies of 100,000 to 200,000 taka in these figures but this is what we have in our records.

"These due amounts include player payments and everything else they owe us," Hassan said.