BoG approves reduced 2020-21 budget with 71.2% allocated to cricket.

LAHORE -- The Board of Governors (BoG) of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Friday approved Rs 7.76 billion operating expenditure budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year, which is a 10 per cent less than the 2019-20 allocations, as part of the PCB's austerity, robust financial management and belt-tightening exercise.

The decision was taken by the PCB Board of Governors during its second meeting of the year, 58th overall, via videoconferencing under the chairmanship of PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani.

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

The allocated 71.2 per cent cricket budget includes 25.2 per cent for domestic cricket (events and players/match officials/player support personnel contracts and High Performance Centre costs), 19.3 per cent for international cricket (home/away series and player contracts), 5.5 per cent for women's cricket (home/away cricket and player contracts), 19.7 per cent for HBL PSL 2021 and 1.5 per cent 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 PS 1.22billion budget for capital expenditure, a reduction of approximately Rs 800 from 2019-20.

PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani said: '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 important investment as we have submitted an expression of interest for some ICC Events in the 2023-31 cycle and quality cricket...