|| CF Correspondent ||

The Bangladesh Cricket Board may lose huge sum of money in order to host the special Bangladesh Premier League T20 tournament unless they force the sponsors to inject more money from their account apart from the current floor price floated by BCB.

After scrapping the franchise-based BPL earlier due to the fact franchises made some unacceptable demands BCB decided to change their stance for the upcoming edition of the tournament as they are currently eyeing to have team sponsors and followed it circulating an Expression of Interest of team sponsorship rights for BPL on September 17 with a deadline of September 22.

However, BCB’s failed to attract any of the six franchises to join them in the form of team sponsors.

Following the deadline, the board claimed that at least six organizations have shown interest in participating as the sponsor of a team in the tournament this year.

But according to some officials related with different franchises in the previous edition of BPL and having a thorough knowledge regarding the expenditure it is unlikely for any team to cover all the expense as per the guidelines of the EOI.

According to the guideline the floor price for the financial offer of team sponsorship rights for the season was set at Tk Six crores and it was learnt BCB urged the sponsors to support financially from their own funds if the teams require extra money in order to operate, though it is unlikely to be the case for the sponsors as they are well aware that they are part of the tournament for this edition only as BCB had informed that they will get enough time to do the paperwork for the next cycle of BPL before launching it following the Bangabandhu BPL.

Whether BCB will offer financial assistance to the team sponsors as that is likely to be the case with the present floor price, is yet to be finalized that is likely to be discussed when both parties sit across the table soon.

‘’The sponsors are participating in the tournament based on a floor price. The expenses of running a team will be more. So many things are to be decided in meetings with these sponsors (to be held soon). We will have to see if the board will contribute financially for the teams and how it can be done,” Jalal told the reporters at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium recently.

On an average a franchise owners used to spend around 12 to 15 crores to form a standard squad for the cash-rich tournament and if BCB tries to follow the standard maintained by the franchises in the earlier edition it can force the board pay heavily.