BCB admits Sylhet, Noakhali teams played without formal agreements

Two Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) franchises competed in the recently concluded 12th edition of the tournament without signing formal agreements with the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), ad-hoc committee member and BPL chairman Fahim Sinha revealed on Thursday.

Speaking at a press conference, Sinha disclosed a series of governance failures surrounding the country’s premier domestic T20 competition.

“We came and did not sign an agreement with two teams yet, but they have played one edition,” Sinha said, though he initially refrained from naming the franchises involved.

However, BCB ad-hoc committee head Tamim Iqbal later indicated that the franchises in question were Noakhali and Sylhet.

Sinha also revealed that the board failed to properly enforce several key conditions outlined in the Expression of Interest (EOI) process, including mandatory bank guarantees and the requirement for franchise owners to have a minimum turnover of Tk1,000 crore.

According to him, all franchises except one violated the EOI conditions.

He further claimed that the BCB Integrity Department, headed by Alex Marshall, had warned the board against awarding franchises to two individuals due to integrity-related concerns, but those recommendations were ignored by the then-governing council.

“We will send an official email to them today (Thursday) or tomorrow (Friday), notifying them to comply with these things within a deadline,” Sinha said, adding that legal action could be taken if franchises fail to meet the requirements.

The revelations have raised fresh concerns over the transparency and credibility of the BPL franchise selection process.

According to Sinha, the BCB incurred losses of around Tk14-16 crore from the last edition of the tournament.