DUBAI: PCB NOC fee Abu Dhabi T10 Pakistan players face missing the league after the Pakistan Cricket Board blocked their no objection certificates unless the league pays 10000 dollars for each one. As many as 16 Pakistani cricketers were picked in the player draft, and their places are now in doubt with the tournament due to begin this weekend. The late demand has left the franchises scrambling to pay the fee or find replacements at the last minute.
The players were picked at the draft on 30 September, when five of the six franchises chose Pakistani talent for the Abu Dhabi T10 November 7 to 20 2026 event. Salman Irshad went to the Arabian Aces, while Akif Javed, Hasan Nawaz and Ali Raza were picked by the Emirates Eagles. Naseem Shah Shadab Khan Mohammad Amir Fakhar Zaman are among the biggest names affected, with Naseem going to the Royal Desert Champions and Shadab, Amir, Khawaja Nafay, Khushdil Shah, Azam Khan and Mohammad Wasim Junior joining the UAE Bulls. Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Sufyan Moqeem and Abbas Afridi were picked by the United Tigers.
The timing of the demand is what has caused the row, because the league applied for the certificates soon after the draft and heard nothing for weeks. According to officials quoted by Cricinfo, the board only told the league about the 10000 dollar fee at the start of this week, just days before the tournament was due to begin. The franchises say they were taken by surprise, and they have spent the last few days running from pillar to post to sign replacements for the 14 to 15 players signed from Pakistan.
Some players were ready to pay the fee themselves, and the reports say a few of them planned to cover the 10000 dollars from their own salaries if the team owners refused. Some owners also thought about paying the fee out of their own pockets or cutting it from the players pay, but those ideas were refused and the stand off stayed in place. Mediation efforts were tried, but the reports say the two sides could not reach an agreement before the tournament, so the Abu Dhabi T10 franchises replacement players search is now under way in earnest.
This is not the first time the board has used the fee to block players, and the Nepal Premier League 25000 dollars NOC fee row from last month shows the pattern. The board asked for 25000 dollars per player for the Nepal league, and most of the Pakistani players who had been picked returned home without playing. Only Hussain Talat and Jahandad Khan were able to appear in the Nepal league, although the franchises there had first signed around eight to 10 Pakistani players. A few players even travelled at their own expense and came back without playing after the certificate issue stayed unresolved.
The board has used the same approach with other leagues, and the reports say it also demands 25000 dollars per player from the Major League in the United States and the International League T20 in the Emirates. The practice of charging a fee for no objection certificates is not new, and it first became an issue around the time of the ILT20 launch. The board has had an on and off policy of seeking a fee in return for a certificate in recent years, which is why leagues never quite know where they stand until the last week.
The picture is mixed by the board own new central contracts, because the PCB central contracts Track C players deal removed the cap on the number of Twenty20 and T10 tournaments those players can join. Track C covers the Twenty20 specialists, and the only condition in the new contracts is that the players stay available for national duty. The contracts for 2025-26 lapsed on 30 June, so the new terms were meant to give players more freedom, yet the certificate fee has now taken that freedom away for this tournament at least.
For the players, the loss is real money and real cricket, because a T10 league is a short event with good pay and a chance to play in front of new audiences. Naseem Shah, Shadab Khan and Fakhar Zaman are all established names who would have drawn crowds, and the younger picks like Hasan Nawaz and Ali Raza would have gained useful experience. The league also loses, because it must now find 16 replacements in days, and the fans who bought tickets to see Pakistani stars may feel short changed. The board has not responded to queries about the fee, according to Cricinfo.
Readers should note two points of care in this story. First, the start date differs between listings, with Cricinfo and the Economic Times giving 7 November and one fixture listing giving 8 November, so the exact opening day should be checked on the morning of the match. Second, the situation was still unresolved when this article was written, and a late payment could still let some players take part, so the final squads may look different from the draft lists. For now, though, the 16 Pakistanis picked in September look set to miss the Abu Dhabi T10.
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