BCCI will face financial hardships if IPL doesn’t go ahead, warns Arun Dhumal

The thirteenth edition of Indian Premier League has approached the position being untenable, with board officials and broadcasters keeping their fingers crossed. Due to the fact that there is a massive pay-check from Star Sports in place, it will be hugely difficult for the BCCI to keep up their current contract obligations in place without it. The force majeure will be eventually brought on into the effect. Arun Dhumal, the BCCI treasurer, admitted the same. 

“The BCCI will also be in a difficult position in case cricket does not resume soon, especially the IPL. In that case, the BCCI will also have to face a lot of financial hardships. IPL is one of the major revenue-generating tournaments. There is nothing much we can do. We will just have to wait for cricket to resume,” Dhumal told Sportstar.

“It would definitely have a spiraling effect. It is not rocket science to understand. If the BCCI is in problem, the state associations will also be facing it. We can only distribute something to the associations when (funds) are coming to the BCCI. But if there is nothing coming BCCI’s way, what’s there for the board to distribute to the cricket associations? So, it’s not only a problem for the board, but would also (have implications) for the state associations,” he added.

While the organisations like Cricket Australia standing down their staff and England and Wales Cricket Board furloughing their staff to avail UK government’s JobKeeper scheme, BCCI have not acted anything as of now. However, the possibility of it can’t be neglected either.

“Nothing as of now. That would be the last resort one would want to take. We don’t want to have pay cuts and hopefully, we can tide over the situation and there is no need for that. But that would depend on how long this situation continues and what’s the final outcome in terms of revenue generation.

“This is definitely a big blow for world cricket. All the boards are feeling the heat. Once the pandemic is over, everybody needs to sit across the drawing board and plan their strategies. The BCCI will definitely do the best possible to help world cricket at large. You can’t have just one or two teams winning all the tournaments. To have competitive cricket, all the teams have to fare well so that the game becomes interesting. Keeping that in mind, we will work shoulder-to-shoulder with every cricket board and help international cricket revive,” Dhumal assured.