KATHMANDU, Jan 29: A group of seven central members from the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) has called for the Executive Committee to step down, accusing them of creating conditions that led to serious offenses, such as spot-fixing, during the Nepal T-20 League.
CAN central members Rishiram Gautam, Daun Ansari, Sanjayraj Singh, Karan Mahatara Chhetri, Amitveer Pandey, Chumbi Lama and Dharmaraj Giri held a press conference on Sunday to demand the resignation of President Chatur Bahadur Chand, Executive Secretary Prashant Malla, Treasurer Roshan Singh and central member Durgaraj Pathak and Padak Khadka.
One of the central members, Chumbi Lama, stated that the leadership of the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) made a mistake and that the agreement was flawed. Lama accused the CAN leadership of being responsible for a player being arrested by the CIB because the contracts were not properly executed.
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He accused the executive committee of being guilty of being involved in spot-fixing of the main strategic and commercial partner company Seven Three Sports, which has an agreement with CAN, in the T-20 league tournament held at Tribhuvan University in Kirtipur. Rishiram Gautam, a CAN member present at the press conference, said that the main fault of the league's partner company being involved in fixing is the CAN leadership of cricket and the performance committee of the CAN, which makes important decisions, should be responsible for it.
According to Gautam, when spot-fixing occurs, the organization is rarely directly involved. Instead, the fixing is carried out by a partner company. As a result, the leadership and performance committee of the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) cannot escape responsibility. They have called for the removal and consequences for the leaders of the CAN who they claim are disregarding regulations and damaging the reputation of the association.
Commenting on the agreement, Sanjay Raj Singh, a central member of the CAN , said that even though they warned that there would be an accident, the performance committee made a mistake by entering into an agreement with the Indian company Seven Three Sports as a strategic and commercial partner for the organization of the Nepal T-20 League. He accused the leadership of attrition despite repeatedly warning the leadership. He demanded that action should be taken to avoid such a pattern in the future.
The participating players themselves said that the players did not get paid in the tournament that was held from 24th December to 11th January and there was an approach for fixing. A controversy broke out in the league after the player's statement. After that incident, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police concluded that there was spot fixing in the Nepal League.
After preliminary investigation, CIB has arrested former national player Mahbub Alam and national team member Adil Ansari and is investigating. Also, the investigation committee of the National Sports Council formed under the coordination of Ekendra Kunwar suggested that the agreement report between CAN and Seven Three Sports should be canceled immediately as the process was not completed according to the prevailing laws and regulations. An eight-year agreement was signed between CAN and Seven Three Star to host the league.
