Kalabagan Krira Chakra's players have met the BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury, informing him that they are yet to be paid their dues for playing in this season's Dhaka Premier League.
Following the pre-season players' draft, the BCB had instructed the clubs to pay the players 25% of their fees before the start of the league, 25% at the end of the league's first phase, and the remaining 50% six weeks after the end of the Super League. By this time, the players should have been paid their dues in full.
Tasamul Haque, who played for Kalabagan in the recently concluded 2017-18 season, said the players were forced to inform the BCB since their club had made it clear it wouldn't be paying the squad their dues.
"Some days back we had written to the BCB who had informed the club," Tasamul said. "They also replied to the board, based on which the board will now sit with the club, but we are unaware of any decisions. They cannot withhold our payment. We have informed the BCB that we want the remaining 50%. The club has told us that after we give our complaint in writing, only the board can pay us. Not the club."
Chowdhury said the BCB would engage in talks with the Kalabagan club officials to resolve the pay dispute. "Players are important to us while clubs are also stakeholders," he said. "We will try to end the dispute with the concerned club as soon as possible.
"The complaint has come up because the club didn't pay in the stipulated time. We will talk to the club officials directly, and try to solve it."
This is not the first time DPL players have had to rely on the BCB to get their full payment. BCB had to pay Kalabagan and Cricket Coaching School players in 2016 while Victoria Sporting Club also refused to pay their players in the same year.
The link between the two years is the players-by-choice draft system, by which the clubs have to adhere to board instructions in paying players in installments. In the open-market transfer system, the players and the club go into a verbal (and sometimes written) agreement in which case most players are paid at least 80% of their fee in advance.
Clubs have successfully arm-twisted the BCB into using the players-by-choice system three times now, mainly because of players' rising payment demands. Under the players-by-choice system, clubs can be less punctual with payments in the knowledge that the players are tied to playing for them, and cannot negotiate with other clubs. The system restricts players into categories, with most taking a pay cut.
Nadif Chowdhury, the Victoria captain in 2016, had said at the time that the player drafts didn't allow instant payment to the players. "The conventional players' transfer system was much better," Nadif said. "Under that system, we got a large chunk of the agreed amount before the league started. Sometimes we got around 80-90%. Now we are hardly even getting half of that amount. We are sad that nobody is following the instruction given by the board."