The dreaded Coronavirus has wreaked havoc all over the world. While millions of people have lost their lives, on the other hand, it has had a profound effect on sporting events too. International cricket boards like BCCI, Cricket Australia and England Cricket Board (ECB) have suffered major losses due to Covid-19. On Tuesday, England Cricket Board revealed that due to raging Covid-19 pandemic, it suffered a huge loss of 16.1 million pounds i.e. INR 167 in the financial year 2020-21.
The loss has been transferred to the England board's reserves.
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"This has been a challenging year, but by being able to stage international cricket and by taking decisive action early in the pandemic, we have been able to support the network and avoid a far worse financial scenario," said Scott Smith, chief financial officer at the ECB.
Last year, the ECB had made a profit of 6.5 million pounds. In 2016, ECB had declared that it had £ 70 million, but now it has reduced to just 2.2 million pounds.
"There remains considerable uncertainty over the year ahead, but we hope that delivering another full summer of cricket -- and with crowds beginning to return from next week -- we are able to protect the revenue we need to invest in growing our game," he said.
World's richest board, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), is also trapped in a major economic crisis. Recently, the 14th season of the Indian Premier league (IPL) 2021 had to be suspended indefinitely after just 29 matches. If the remaining IPL 14 matches get cancelled, then the BCCI could suffer a loss of up to 25 crores.