Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is planning to relaunch the country's franchise-based T20 tournament – Afghanistan Premier League (APL) in December-January.
After the inaugural edition of the APL was successfully played in 2018, the future of the franchise T20 league was in limbo as its 2019 season had to be postponed due to funding problems after the company that acquired the right to host the tournament didn’t pay on the time for the first edition and then the ACB dropped the organizer altogether.
However, the Interim Chief Executive of the ACB, Nazim Zar Abdulrahimzai, has confirmed to Cricbuzz on Thursday, 8th October, that the board is now planning to relaunch APL in December-January and they expecting to host the league in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Abdulrahimzai stated: “We are looking forward to launch it [ APL] in late December or first January. We are looking to have the franchises and we will have the franchises we will be pulling carpet that we can do it and we are trying that.”
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The ACB CEO added, “We have a meeting with them in the coming few days and after that we will be able to inform everyone about the tentative dates but we are hopeful to host it in the coming days.”
Noteworthy, the ACB has an uphill task ahead to fix up with Snixer Sports apart from convincing the franchises, as the company has filed a lawsuit against the board in a London court and demanded US $ 15 million to end their contract citing they have not broken any rules and made all payments within 60 days of the first season of the APL.
However, ACB's cricket operation manager Menhaj Raz refused the Snixer's claim, saying they are confident that the board will get the decision in their favor by the arbitrator.
Menhaj signed off by saying, “We have terminated the contract of Snixer because of material breach as they were not able to do the payment. What we have done is based on contract and we claim the same amount as per contract. They failed according to contract. The decision will be announced by the arbitrator of course.”
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
