Former Australia captain Steve Waugh is among the franchise investors in a men’s European T20 tournament set to be played by city-based teams in Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands later this year.
The six-team European T20 Premier League (ETPL) was meant to launch in 2025, but the event was postponed because the sales of the participating franchises were not completed in time.
However, deals have now been agreed for three of the franchises with two separate groups of investors from Australia and one from New Zealand.
One of those is led by Waugh, who is heading up the Amsterdam Flames, which is backed by a consortium that includes former Australian field hockey player Jamie Dwyer and Australian businessman Tim Thomas.
The Flames have already signed high-profile Australia internationals Steve Smith and Mitch Marsh as two of their overseas players.
Waugh, 60, said he was “fascinated” by the opportunity to “take the global game of cricket to continental Europe”.
“I’m not signing up to a Mickey Mouse T20 competition. This is the real deal,” Waugh told BBC Sport.
“I wouldn’t be lending my name to it, or bringing my knowledge, if it wasn’t. The players we’ve spoken to are very keen to play in this league.”
Bollywood actor and film producer Abhishek Bachchan is a part-owner of the ETPL in conjunction with Rules Sport Tech, a private Indian company.
BBC Sport understands the franchises were sold for £11.1m ($15m) over a 10-year period.
Teams will have a total salary budget in the region of £1.1m ($1.5m) per season, with the inaugural tournament set to start on 26 August.
The league is being run in collaboration with the cricket boards of Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands.
It has been sanctioned by the International Cricket Council, who see it as a useful base for the broader development of cricket in Europe.
Bachchan said that, with “the quality of players signing on,” everything about the tournament “will be world class”.
“We are all primed and ready to go but the true hard work starts now,” Bachchan added.
“We are very confident of the stakeholders we have on board and expect the ETPL will establish itself in the global ecosystem of franchise tournaments.”
