The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) suddenly raided the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) office on Tuesday. Three ACC officials were involved in the hour-and-a-half-long raid. They said the raid was based on three specific complaints. One official also mentioned that they found early signs of around 19 to 20 crore taka being lost, related to Mujib Barsho events and ticket sales.
The ACC team arrived at the BCB office in Mirpur around 12 PM. Later, ACC Assistant Director Al Amin explained that 15 crore taka was allocated for Mujib Barsho, but records show 25 crore was spent. However, the BCB has only shown documents for 7 crore and claimed 2 crore more was used. So far, this points to a possible loss of 19 to 20 crore taka.
He also said, “In the past few years, only 2-3 teams would take part in the third division selection for the domestic competition. But this time, 60 teams joined. The ACC is checking if this sudden rise is just to avoid higher entry fees or if there’s another reason. Also, in the first 8 BPL seasons, ticket sales brought in 15 crore taka total. But in just the 11th season alone, ticket sales made 13 crore taka. We’re looking into that too.”
Another ACC official, Mahmudul Hasan, added, “We received some specific complaints. One was about third division selection and another about the 2023 team selection. We reviewed how it was done before. The application fee was 5 lakh taka earlier, and only 2-3 teams applied. They would pick 2 teams from those. But this time, when the fee dropped to 1 lakh, 60 teams applied. We’ve gathered documents and will now check everything carefully.”