Salary cuts, layoffs a possibility says Grave
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cricket West Indies (CWI) Johnny Grave believes salary cuts could be a possibility if there is no live cricket in the near future.
The CEO was speaking on the Barbados radio programme, Mason and Guests when he was quizzed on the possibility of salary cuts and staff layoffs should the Novel Coronavirus (COVID19) force a cancellation of not only the England series in July but the two home series against New Zealand and South Africa as well as the T20 World Cup.
“Yea, I mean absolutely,” was his response.
Grave explained, “We are no different from any other business or organization and if we are not being able to play live men’s cricket we are not going to necessarily get our revenues or contracts that we were looking to secure.”
He added, “Our ability to operate as normal becomes increasingly challenging so the longer international cricket cannot be played here in the region or the international team playing here or aboard it becomes more and more challenging to run the organization like pre-COVID-19.”
Grave posited, “Life, we have seen in the Caribbean and across the world with businesses taking tough decisions, we are no different. At some point in time we will have to make some decisions.”
However, Grave said they would be guided by the Financial Review and Strategy Committee in consultation with the players.
“We are in close consultations with our Financial Review and Strategy Committee that was established about four weeks ago and obviously our board of directors and any other stakeholders including the players.” When asked about a bailout plan, Grave indicated that there are a range of avenues the body intends to explore if necessary.
“There is not only one strategy, I think there are about 10 headings for the current strategy and action plan that we are looking to implement and they range from seeking additional fundings to increase revenue to cutting costs and making any other changes to the sort of cricket programme,” the CEO said.
Grave reiterated that the impact of the pandemic, which forced restrictions including the shutdown of all international and regional cricket over the last two months, has not affected Caribbean cricket financially as it would have impacted the rest of the world. However, he was wary that if it continues over a lengthy period it will take a toll on CWI financially.
“The cricket we’ve lost is our investment cricket so at the moment COVID-19 has really just affected the cricket that would have normally cost us money. It’s really when it starts to affect our international men’s programmes not only the home series point of view, obviously the England series from a Sandals perspective but also the ICC World T20 and that’s what some of the ICC revenues come from so that’s when some of the tougher measures and financial aid could be significantly challenging,” Grave stated.
Last month CWI President, Ricky Skerritt appeared on the same programme and expressed similar concerns while giving a scenario of no cricket for the rest of the year negatively impacting salaries for players, officials and staff.