Kathmandu, September 29

Nepal national cricket team’s main sponsors, Singapore-based SingaSteel have threatened the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) of taking legal action for unilaterally terminating the deal.

SingaSteel had signed a three-year deal with CAN in December last year. As per the agreement — signed by the then CAN President Tanka Angbuhang and SingaSteel Managing Director Saad Khan Janjua — the sponsors would provide jerseys and kits worth Rs 10 million every year and in return the CAN had to use the BS logo.

“CAN CEO Bhawana Ghimire sent me an e-mail saying that the contract was over on May 23, a day after she asked me to prepare the stuff for national team,” said Mohd Ali Babar, Marketing Director at BS Sports, a subsidiary of SingaSteel. “It came to me as a shock and I wondered what went wrong in 24 hours.

And interestingly she did not give reasons behind cancelling the deal,” he added. “Even if CAN wanted to cancel the deal, they should give us the notice of 60 days, which is clearly mentioned in the contract paper.”

“We will not go for explanations or justification from our end since it is learnt that CAN has already signed a new agreement with another party,” said Babar. “We have others options like sending a legal notice to CAN to compensate $180,000 we spent on them and notify the case to ICC and ACC, which will at least make the others parties cautious that CAN operates without professionalism,” he added. “We can also send formal notification to Youth and Sports Ministry, National Sports Council and other local bodies in Nepal,” said Babar.

“We came into agreement in the best of our spirits with our special relations with Aamir Akhtar and Binod Das. They convinced us fully what Nepal cricket is capable of and we believed on them. During the tenure of the contract we did our best to cater Nepal team, even in short notices and extreme communication gaps,” he said.

Babar also accused CEO Ghimire of playing double standard. “Ghimire played a very double standard while communicating with me when she expressed Bright Sports’ inability to supply dresses for the players in Sri Lanka. She blamed us openly through twitter. On the contrary, she had accepted her failure to provide details on time.

We felt very insulted right throughout,” Babar added. “Bright Sports supports many internationally reputed Test cricketers worldwide and we enjoy a stable relation with players and cricket boards. But it has not been the same with CAN.

However, before we proceed ahead, we will wait for CAN’s feedback or reasons behind the action,” he said.