Funds crunch looms if BCCI skittles league

“I WISH one day I could tell Cricket SA (CSA), ‘I don’t need your money’,” Cobras chief executive Nabeal Dien said this week.

Fat chance of that happening any time soon, especially if the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) working committee does what is widely expected at their meeting tomorrow and disbands the Champions League T20 (CLT20).

The tournament puts more than R300-million in CSA’s coffers annually. But the broadcasters are losing around $100-million (R1.2-billion) a year as interest dwindles in what could have been the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) big brother but has instead become its poor cousin.

Each of SA’s six franchises benefit from the CLT20 cash to the tune of R350 000 a year.

Dien said the Cobras would be worse off by R1-million to R1.5-million a year. The Titans would see a negative swing of around R4-million in their budget.

The Warriors did not return calls asking about their situation should the tournament be scrapped. But as one of SA’s less affluent franchises they would not be best pleased.

Another franchise chief executive, who declined to be named, painted a bleak picture for the domestic game.

“I knock on a lot of doors looking for sponsorship and not a lot are answered. I’ve seen marketing executives holding their heads in their hands not knowing what to do.”

But there could yet be some light at the end of what seems a dark tunnel, courtesy of CSA.

What their chief executive, Haroon Lorgat, has termed a “re-engineering” exercise, be- gun soon after he started his tenure in 2013, is nearing completion.

This has consolidated CSA to the size of an organisation more in touch with its reality as one of the seven test-playing countries frozen out of the big three of India, England and Australia.

All 12 of CSA’s provincial affiliates have adopted a new funding model geared towards ensuring they break even, he said. So far, so good – for CSA at least.

“We were projecting a loss of R106-million (for this financial year),” Lorgat said.

“We’ve managed through commercial programmes, the re-engineering, and fortuitous gains from the exchange rate to have turned a profit in excess of R100-million, and that’s something we can be proud of.”

Dien may yet see his wish come true but for now it’s business as usual in SA cricket.