ZC not caught off guard by Covid-19

Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Cricket chairman, Tavengwa Mukuhlani believes that measures they had already taken to reduce salaries should help them fight better the effects of the coronavirus.

At the beginning of the year, ZC embarked on salary restructuring which saw employees taking a pay cut on a sliding scale. That saw the secretariat together with the highest paid players getting their salaries reduced by 30 percent. Lowly paid players, including those on provincial or central contracts had their renumeration slashed by 15 percent. Only the ground staff were not affected by the salary cuts since they are lowly paid.

The reduction in salaries came about since ZC’s disbursement from the International Cricket Council was decreased from $9 million to $5 million from September 2019 to October 2020. Mukuhlani feels the move, together with other cost cutting measures can assist ZC better handle the challenges posed by Covid-19.

“The fortunate thing is that we had started adjusting salaries on a sliding scale with the highest paid staff taking a 30 percent pay cut. That will cushion us in a way, we had already started implementing this. We have been on controlled funding from the ICC, since 2017 we have been on cost cutting. The pandemic found us in a much better position, with a plan in place, we have not been caught off guard,’’ Mukuhlani said.

ZC suffered financial losses due to Covid-19 when English county sides, Derbyshire and Durham abandoned their visits to the country. When the tours were called off with the two teams already in Zimbabwe, ZC had already paid for hotel accommodation for the tourists. On top of that, Zimbabwe have had to put on hold their home series with Ireland because of the pandemic.

What ZC are concerned about is the value of television rights from their most lucrative home series, against India. The Indians are meant to come to Zimbabwe in September but with all sporting activity on hold, the tour might now take place later. India happen to be the cash cow for all cricket boards due to the popularity of cricket in the Asian country.

“The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to affect the value of our TV rights. We are not sure when we are going to play our most profitable tour, that is the India tour. Assume we postpone it, we don’t know whether when we eventually play it, whether it’s a profitable window for our TV broadcasters,’’ Mukuhlani said.

Another concern is that should ICC fail to hold the Twenty20 World Cup to be held in Australia in October, that is sure to affect disbursements to members.

“Globally, there is minimal disruption to the ICC calendar so far, if that happens, we would be doomed. ICC distributions are dependent on their events.”

Last Thursday, chief executive officers from the ICC members had a conference call to discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the sport. The CEOs expressed their full commitment to work in partnership to address the challenges the sport will face in the coming weeks and months. An agreement was reached that the disrupted Future Tours Programme would need to be collectively reviewed through to 2023 with a view to rescheduling as much of the cricket that has been postponed due to Covid-19 as possible.
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