FICA backs legal action against Bangladesh on players' dues

BENONI, SOUTH AFRICA – MARCH 02: Brad Hogg bowls during the MiWay T20 Challenge match between The New Age Impi and Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras at Sahara Willowmoore Park on March 2, 2012 in Benoni, South Africa.

Melbourne, July 12 (IANS) The Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) has said it would support the legal action if the players who have not been paid for playing in the inaugural Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), decide to proceed against the franchises and the country’s board.

Announcing this, FICA chief executive Tim May said all international cricketers would also be warned against competing in the BPL in future.

“The process of the payment of players has deteriorated into a joke,” May said in a statement Wednesday, adding that franchises, the Bangladesh Cricket Board and its president Mustafa Kamal had made numerous promises to pay the players but “unfortunately have chosen to only settle a handful of the players’ outstanding sums in recent weeks.”

Australians Brad Hogg, Brad Hodge and Shane Harwood played in February’s inaugural Bangladesh Twenty20 competition and the organisers owe some $600,000 to a dozen international players, reports Herald Sun.

Organisers have also been accused of paying local Bangladeshi players less than 60 per cent of their contracted money.

Hogg and Hodge were the Australian mainstays in the tournament, with Harwood injured in his second game.

The Australian Cricketers’ Association says either Hogg or Hodge hasn’t been paid.

“My understanding is that one of them has been paid and the other hasn’t,” association chief executive Paul Marsh said Wednesday, not wanting to name the unpaid player.

The franchises have also not issued a certificate to players for payments of withholding tax, despite the six teams claiming to have deducted the tax, in some cases 25 percent.