The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has decided to provide financial relief to controlling and affiliated clubs with the sport coming to a standstill due to the coronavirus, Cricket Age exclusively learns.
The decision was taken yesterday night (May 8) by SLC executive committee with circulating a resolution among the committee members.
“It has brought to the attention of board President by the controlling and affiliated clubs, seeking special grants to be approved in light of the financial difficulties related to the Covid-19. Clubs have indicated that the ongoing locked down situation owing to the Covid-19 has abruptly halted all the functions of clubs and has significantly impacted on the operational aspects of the clubs such as maintenance costs, staff salaries, players fees, training, equipments and other amenities. Taking this into consideration, the president has proposed to offer financial assistance to all the controlling and affiliated clubs” the resolution, sent by SLC secretary Mohan De Silva, reads.
Accordingly, controlling clubs with grounds will be getting SLR 1.5 million each. Nondescript Cricket Club, Sinhalese Cricket Club, Bloomfield Cricket and athletic club, Tamil Union Cricket and athletic Club, Burgher Recreation club, Chilaw Marians Cricket Club, Colts Cricket Club, Colombo Cricket Club are among those clubs, who falls under this category.
All other controlling clubs are entitled to get 1 million as financial Grant from the SLC, while affiliated clubs will get 0.5 million each. In addition, Mercantile cricket association, nationalized services cricket association, defense services sports board, Sri Lanka State Service CA will also be getting a sum of 1 million each.
It is noteworthy that SLC is remained closed since March 14, when Country’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa had announced nationwide lockdown to control the spreading of the virus. Since then, Board employees, as per the government guideline, have been told to work from the home until further notice. Since then, the Sri Lanka government has extended nationwide curfew many times in past one and half month, in order to control the virus.
Earlier as well, SLC won millions of cricket fans heart by granting LKR 25 Million to country’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in government’s mountainous efforts to fight against the deadly virus. At the same time, SLC has also taken a courageous move of not slashing salaries of it’s minor employees, amidst a spree of salary cut decisions made by a number of companies in the country over the past one month.
Not only this, in the supervision of president Shammi Silva, the SLC, in April, provided a Grant of 1,00,000 each for the months of March and April as a relief measure to lessen the burden of the member clubs to upkeep the standard of the venues and infrastructure facilities owned by it’s member clubs. In addition, SLC also provided a monetary advance of Rs. 780,000 to the Umpires Association of Sri Lanka.
Like any other country, International cricket has come to a halt in Sri Lanka as well. In March, the Lankans, led by Dimuth Karunaratne, were scheduled to lock horns with England in a Test series. But after how things panned out, the series in the World Test Championship (WTC) had to be shelved for the time being. Last week, SLC were forced to cancel another series – this time against South Africa, which was originally slated for month of June.
