Board of Governors approves reduced 2020-21 budget with 71.2 percent allocated to cricket - Press Release issued by Pakistan Cricket Board.

Lahore -- June 26, 2020 (PPI-OT)

Following is the text of press release issued by Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)

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The Board of Governors of the Pakistan Cricket Board on Friday morning held their second meeting of the year, 58th overall, via a videoconference under the chairmanship of Mr Ehsan Mani.

The following are the key decisions taken by the PCB's supreme body:

2020-21 budget

The BoG approved a PKR7.76billion operating expenditure budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year, which is a 10 percent reduction from the 2019-20 budget as part of the PCB's austerity, robust financial management and belt-tightening exercise.

Without compromising and reducing any activities from the 2019-20 activities, the PCB has allocated 71.2 percent of the overall budget for cricket-related activities. This is to ensure that despite tough financial situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cricket remains unaffected and the PCB continues to invest in the future.

The allocated 71.2 percent cricket budget includes 25.2 percent for domestic cricket (events and players/match officials/player support personnel contracts and High Performance Centre costs), 19.3 percent for international cricket (home/away series and player contracts), 5.5 percent for women's cricket (home/away cricket and player contracts), 19.7 percent for HBL PSL 2021 and 1.5 percent for Medical and Sport Sciences.

While forecasting shortfall in revenues due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has left the fate of revenues from international events hanging in balance and may also affect PCB's commercial programme, the BoG has agreed to continue investment on infrastructure development by approving a PKR1.22billion budget for capital expenditure, a reduction of approximately PKR800million from 2019-20.

PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani: "We have followed a strict cost-benefit and value for money policy while preparing this budget taking into consideration the economic situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The budget caters for all critical business of cricket activities, while the nice-to-have activities have been set aside as part of our cost-cutting measures and to protect our reserves for the future.

"I am also grateful to the BoG for approving the capital expenditure budget, which is aimed at enhancing and improving our infrastructure so that we can provide better experience and facilities to our fans and cricketers, and also develop and upgrade our high-performance centres across the country. This will be an...