Shakib terminates controversial contract with BetWinner News
Shakib Al Hasan has agreed to cancel his deal with BetWinner News, a surrogate promotion of online betting website BetWinner.
Shakib has informed the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) of this decision through a letter, just hours after its president Nazmul Hassan's stern warning.
Earlier in the day, after a meeting with BCB's high officials, Nazmul implied that the board would cut all ties with him if he didn't terminate the controversial contract.
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Nizam Uddin Chowdhury, the CEO of the BCB, confirmed the news to The Business Standard.
"It has progressed well. We are in touch with Shakib and he has informed us through a letter that he no longer has a partnership with BetWinner," he said.
Shakib further informed that he would delete the Facebook post regarding his partnership with BetWinner. "He informed us of his decision an hour ago. He also said that he would delete the Facebook post and there won't be any connection between that website and him," said Jalal Yunus, the chairman of cricket operations of the BCB.
A player has to get the approval of the board before signing any kind of contract but Shakib didn't do that. When asked about that, Jalal Yunus said, "We discussed that too in the meeting. But our primary concern was whether he would cancel the contract or not. We'll think about that later."
After the meeting, the BCB boss stressed that the board wouldn't change their stance on the issue and could even axe Shakib if he didn't call the contract off.
"There is no chance of a second thought," said Nazmul. "We are not going to change our stance on the issue. I have always said that we would show zero-tolerance to these kinds of things. The BCB will never allow these. We had to drop players like [Mohammad] Ashraful before for such issues."
"There can't be any kind of involvement. He must cancel the deal. Otherwise, he won't be there in the team let alone be the captain. There is nothing to be discussed here. We have made our stance crystal clear," he said.
The issue forced the BCB to hold the squad announcement for the Asia Cup despite Thursday being the deadline. With Mahmudullah relieved of captaincy and Nurul Hasan - captain of the team in Zimbabwe T20Is - injured, Shakib is the frontrunner to be the skipper of the side for the Asia Cup and later the T20 World Cup.
