Kamal insists BPL dues will be cleared

Mustafa Kamal, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president, has said that all player payments related to the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) will be cleared and that no player had contacted the board with written complaints.

The reaction comes a day after Tim May, the chief executive of Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA), told ESPNcricinfo that he would initiate legal action against the BCB and BPL franchises as many players were yet to receive full payment. May called the BCB "amateurish" and also called into question the "integrity of people involved in the leadership of Bangladesh cricket".

While talking to Daily Star, Kamal said: "The statement is very unfortunate. I have said it repeatedly that it is BCB's obligation that if any player is unpaid, the board will make the payments. I am reassuring that not a single player will go unpaid.

"The impression we have from talking to the six franchises is that most of the payments have been disbursed. But there may still be one or two cases of unpaid wages. We have said it before and I will repeat it now: the BCB will pay the foreign players if the franchises don't."

The BPL governing council was informed by the franchises that around 89% of the foreign players' payments have been made but haven't provided similar information for the local players. According to a BCB press release, out of the $2.77m net payable, the unpaid fees figure currently stands at around $305,000. The release also said that two of the six BPL franchises have completed their payments to foreign cricketers in full. For local players, it said, the BPL would take action after speaking to the concerned players and officials individually.

"The governing council has recommended to the BCB that, as guarantor, the board should clear the outstanding payments and the process should be initiated immediately," the BCB said. "The payment of local cricketers is also being seriously looked into by the governing council, which has not received a definite picture of the payment status from the franchises. Therefore it has been decided that the governing council would speak to individual players and relevant officials of team managements and take measures accordingly."

Kamal said that neither the players nor their agents had lodged an official complaint to the BCB. "The most unfortunate thing is that not a single player has sent us a written complaint, we don't have a particular case in our hands. Every comment is made in general, not made about a particular player," he said. "We have even talked to the players' agents, but once again the name of any particular player who hasn't been paid didn't come up. Nobody has written to us. Anyone can contact us, even Tim May, about an unpaid player."

But ESPNcricinfo has learned that FICA emailed the BCB twice last month regarding the non-payments and that at least one individual agent has shown that he has communicated with Game On Sports, BPL's event management firm, which was copied in the mail to BCB regarding unpaid wages.

Kamal said that since the BPL was a hurriedly organised event, there were some mistakes in their work. "From the beginning we have said that it has been organised in a very short time," he said. "Mistakes are bound to happen but we are working on correcting them ahead of the next tournament.

"We are doing everything for the players' benefit. As an example, I can tell you that we have paid some of the ex-Bangladesh players from the earnings of BPL."