KARACHI: A company that acquired the rights to hold the Afghanistan Premier League (APL) in 2018 has filed a lawsuit at an arbitration court in London against the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), claiming 15 million USD vide their agreement over Afghanistan Premier League dated 03-/04-2018.

“We strongly believe in the potential the talent, enthusiasm and the love for cricket the people of Afghanistan have. In our endeavour to safeguard the same, we were left with no other option but to resort to legal remedies against the biased and illegal conduct of ACB,” an official of the management company, Snixer Sports, told this correspondent.

“Each franchisee spends close to 1.5 million USD per team and with 5 teams its 7.5 million. Around 2 million will be spent by promoters every season to sustain the league, which pushes the total league cost to around USD 10 million per season. There is no market due of APL season 1 and Snixer has cleared 100% market payments in 60 days of the league commencement despite facing losses of over USD 3 million in the inaugural season,” the official added.

The Afghanistan Cricket Board, in September last year, postponed the 2019 edition of APL after the league’s commercial partner failed to pay the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) rights money. The ACB terminated the agreement, also citing concerns about the integrity of people associated with Snixer Sports, the partners.

The official was of the opinion that the ACB had no justification to cancel such large scale investment, especially when they (ACB) were partners in the venture without having the home market advantage.

“End to end dependency of the league was on investors and they never shied away. A new tender issued by ACB also suggests that board is financially not capable of running the league themselves. We deny any/all allegations labeled against us by Afghanistan Cricket Board and want to place it on record that there had been no material breach by us. The allegations over questionable “integrity” by ACB with respect to ICC, ACU are defamatory,” the company official concluded.

On the other hand, the Afghanistan Cricket Board said they terminated the contract because Snixer Sports failed to pay the dues as per the mutual agreement.

“Snixer Sports and people connected to them possessed a severe risk to the integrity of the league. The ICC Anti-Corruption Unit is aware of these risks and are investigating several cases,” the ACB spokesperson Mohammad Ibrahim Momand told this correspondent.

“The ACB is happy that they claimed because we don’t have to pay them, in fact they (Snixers) owe ACB dues of the last (APL) season. They were a risk for APL integrity as well, first of all they have to clear our dues and then our legal team will deal with their legal team or with the court as required,” the ACB spokesperson concluded.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2020