BCB president Tamim Iqbal's claim that the Bangladesh Premier League has cost the board around Tk 40 crore over the past two editions has been publicly disputed by former BCB director Asif Akbar, who called the figure "completely false" and demanded an audit and public hearing at the highest level of government.

Tamim outlined the tournament's structural and financial problems at a press conference on Thursday afternoon, confirming the BPL will not be held this year while the board works to fix the issues behind it.

"I do not want to organise the BPL like this. The problem is that if a team withdraws or fails to comply with the rules, the BCB itself has to take responsibility for that team."

He put the scale of the losses at around Tk 40 crore across the last two seasons, arguing the tournament should be generating revenue rather than draining it.

"In the last two years, the BCB has suffered losses of around Tk 40 crore. The BCB is supposed to make a profit from franchise cricket, not suffer losses. So until we can fix the problems, organising the tournament at a loss is not important."

Tamim said the next edition would instead be built around a longer-term plan, with the board using the pause to overhaul how franchises are run and held accountable, rather than rushing to stage a tournament this year in its current form.

He acknowledged the decision would hurt players financially in the short term but said the long-term health of the competition mattered more.

Many cricketers rely on the BPL for a significant part of their income, and the absence of a tournament this year is expected to affect a large number of them, a reality Tamim said the board had weighed carefully before reaching its decision.

Asif Akbar, a singer who served as a BCB director during the interim government's tenure, rejected the figures entirely in a Facebook post published later that evening.

"The announcement of a Tk 40 crore loss over two BPL seasons is completely false. Alongside an audit from the highest level of the government, I want a public hearing."

Franchise non-compliance and financial irregularities have been central to the BPL's troubles in recent years, with previous seasons marred by allegations against players and teams, along with reports that several franchises failed to pay players on time, some dues only settled after direct BCB intervention.

Tamim maintained that fixing those structural issues, rather than the calendar, was the board's priority going forward, with the tournament expected to return next year once reforms to franchise accountability and financial oversight are in place.