Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) finally struck the much-talked-about Long Form Agreement (LFA) with Nimbus Sports International Ltd for its Worldwide Marketing Agency Rights for a period of six years.It's taken the board long twenty months to put pen to the paper since the groundbreaking deal of 56.88 million-dollar heads of agreement was signed on November 21, 2006.BCB's acting chief executive officer Nizam Uddin Chowdhury and executive vice-president of Nimbus Sports International Yannick Colaco signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organisations at a local hotel yesterday.BCB president Major General Sina Ibn Jamali and most of the ad-hoc committee members were present on the occasion.Nimbus Sports International won BCB's Worldwide TV Marketing rights (for six years) during the tenure of Ali Asghar but in the changed scenario after the 1/11 the new board led by Major General Jamali had decided to give a long hard look into the sensitive financial deal after questions were raised about the transparency of the deal.However, after the long scrutiny the original deal actually stood with minor adjustments clearing the air of any foul play by the previous committee of the board.It was clearly evident after the signing of the deal when BCB's Finance Committee Chairman Abdul Momen, who also headed a review committee, avoided making comments on the dark part of the original deal (if there was any). Rather he was interested to talk about the bright part of it and some minor changes that according to him strengthened BCB's regulatory position.While the board officials talked about the win-win situation, Nimbus representative Colaco was very bold in his assertion."In this subcontinent we always smell something in any kind of financial deal. In my life I have had the experience of involving in million, million dollars deals and I must say it was the most, most transparent deal I have ever done, " said Colaco.Momen was more interested to elaborate the changes that have been made."Our main focus was to improve and strengthen our position both in legal and financial aspects and we believe we could manage it. And we are now in a win-win situation after some adjustments in the deal," stressed Momen."Under the LFA the BCB will have true copies of every contract that Nimbus enters into with third party licensees. The BCB will also be allowed to review and audit or appoint an auditor to do so, the books of accounts and other relevant information of Nimbus twice per contract-year and upon five days written notice. We could add this because of the negotiation and these provisions will facilitate transparency in monitoring the revenues/receivable from Nimbus Sport," he explained."And another thing is that we could cap-in the minimum guaranteed amount which was vague in the heads of agreement. Now the amount under the LFA is 56.88 million dollars including allowable expenditure of 15.31 million dollars which will be spent for the production of Live World Television Feed for the said events for the duration of the term," he added."And the clause which said the BCB will provide Nimbus with a match schedule for each event at least 22 days before the start of the event and hence if any game is cancelled, then the allowable expenditure will be reduced proportionately. This is totally a new clause which will keep our interest intact," said Momen.He also informed that they made changes in the clause of the BCB events schedule, uplink cost, net fees and BCB branding.
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