DHAKA: Bangladesh cricket authorities said on Saturday they would takelegal action against star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan for allegedlybreaching his contract to sign a sponsorship deal with a top mobile phoneoperator.
Shakib on Tuesday inked the agreement with former national team sponsorGrameenphone for an undisclosed sum at a time when he was also leading aplayers´ strike for better pay and benefits.
“We believe there was a contractual and procedural breach in his contract.Of course, we will take action against it,” Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)chief executive officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury told AFP.
BCB president Nazmul Hassan said they will seek compensation from bothShakib and the phone company.
“We are going to take legal action. There is no scope to spare anyone. Wewill seek compensation from both the company and the player,” Hassan saidin an interview with Bengali newspaper Kalerkantho on Saturday.
“We thought it’s a kind of ‘I don’t give a damn to the rules of Board’attitude. If that is the case, of course, we will take tough action,” hesaid.
Grameenphone — which is majority owned by Norway’s Telenor — was thesponsor of Bangladesh Cricket Board during the period of 2009-2011.
Hassan said the Board incurred huge losses after the company signed playersindividually instead of bidding to become the team sponsor in 2015 when arival operator won the deal.
“This is why we barred the players to sign any agreement with telcos…yet, he (Shakib) did this. And you see the timing? Agreement after stoppingplay. These are audacious behaviour,” he said.
The BCB president also criticized Shakib for his on-field performance.
“We defeated England and Australia in our own ground. Now we lost toAfghanistan. If I was responsible I would not show my face let alone stagea protest,” he added, referring to Bangladesh´s 224-run loss in one-offTest against Afghanistan in early September when Shakib was captain.
Shakib led a players’ strike on Monday which follows increasing criticismfrom players that the Bangladesh Cricket Board was not sharing its wealth.
The players called off the strike late on Wednesday and started training onFriday for next month’s India tour as the BCB accepted most of theirdemands. -APP/AFP