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Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has cancelled its contract with the Aamby Valley (Mauritius) Limited, an affiliate of India’s Sahara Group, 15 months before the term was to end.
The team sponsorship rights was sold to Aamby Valley in June 2012 in a $14 million four-year deal, the biggest in the country’s cricket history.
The Tigers will no more display a commercial logo on the team clothing from now on.
That the contract was over came to light when the BCB advertised in a national daily on Mar 30 for a new sponsor for the home series against Pakistan set to start from Apr 13.
BCB’s Chief executive Officer Nizam Uddin Chowdhury told ESPNcricinfo that the contract had ended.
But he did not give details on any financial implications of the termination.
“We have decided not to continue our contract with Sahara,” Nizam Uddin told ESPNcricinfo.
“That’s why we have given an advertisement for a new team sponsor for the Pakistan series. We cannot speak about the deal [with Sahara] at this moment.”
The ESPNcricinfo report said the BCB in the advertisement asked the new bidders to include an irrevocable bank guarantee of 50 percent of the total offered value, which will be considered a security deposit.
The company that wins the rights will have to pay the full quoted amount before the agreement is signed. It has to be completed by Apr 12, the report said.
Sahara, a sprawling conglomerate that ranges from media to property and Formula One motor racing, in 2012 had outbid Grameenphone, which had sponsored the Tigers for eight years.
The Indian business giant has been going through severe financial difficulties over the past year.
The company’s founder and chief Subrata Roy Sahara is in jail for more than a year after Sahara failed to comply with a court order to refund billions of dollars to investors in a bond programme that was ruled illegal.
Sahara had also sponsored India’s national cricket team for 12 years. But the partnership ended in December 2013 when television network Star India outbid it.
