Finance no longer an excuse

It was quite amusing to read that the Ranatunga led Sri Lanka Cricket interim committee had settled ‘all financial liabilities with banks including, pending overdrafts over 600 million (no currency mentioned) on June 20 with payments received from the sale of TV rights for the upcoming India tour of Sri Lanka 2008’.

What everyone should realise is that it is this very same administration that not so long ago had made attempts to cancel the existing contract Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) had with Ten Sports and replace it with one of their own choice. Soon after assuming office Ranatunga stated that the TV deal made with Ten Sports by the previous administration needed to be investigated due to the lack of transparency and wanted the Sports Minister to intervene. An inquiry is still going on by a three-man committee appointed by the Minister comprising secretary to the Minister S Liyanagama, Sports Council chairman Dr. Maiya Gunasekera and a lawyer BS Perera.

For the past four years Ten Sports, the leading sports channel in the subcontinent with rights to televise and broadcast from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies, South Africa and Zimbabwe has been SLC’s official TV broadcaster. They have signed an agreement till 2008 which in 2007 was renewed with an addendum to continue till 2012 for according to the 2004 agreement all 16 scheduled tours to Sri Lanka had to be bound. But due to the Future Tours Program (FTP) and cancellation of tours they were forced to renew the contract for a further four years.

SLC already had one bad experience of terminating TV contracts for which they had to pay a heavy price. They were forced to eke out Rs. 500 million as compensation fees when the administration under Vijay Malalasekera went ahead and terminated the contract of Nimbus Communication owned by Harish Thivani in 2002 for late payments. Payment of this backlog is one reason why SLC found itself with a huge overdraft with the bank.

Shamelessly now that the first instalment of fifty percent of the total figure of US$15.2 million has been paid by Ten Sports for next month’s Indian tour, the current administration is boasting that they have overcome all their financial liabilities. First and foremost the Ranatunga administration should be grateful to Ten Sports for pulling them out of the red. They were up to their neck on bank overdrafts exceeding Rs. 600 million. The payment of US$7.6 million has enabled SLC to breathe a little easier. But instead of keeping the payment under wraps they quite amateurishly publicised it with a media release on Friday thus making it known to all and sundry that SLC are with enough money in their kitty.

Little do they realise that by going public they were attracting the attention of other debtors around the world. The SLC has yet to pay their annual subscription to the International Cricket Council (ICC) and it won’t be a surprise that they will be asked to do so shortly by the cricketing hierarchy in Dubai.

On the pretext of SLC being in a dire financial state they drastically cut down on the annual finances of the Premier clubs bringing much displeasure amongst its membership who have threatened to take the matter up with the President. It is common knowledge that Sri Lanka cricket cannot exist without the clubs which over the years have been the yardstick for national selection and today form the base for the provincial tournaments.

Now that SLC are more or less out of the financial debacle they had faced for the past six months, it is high time that they buckled down to do some solid work and develop the country’s cricket and also complete the central contracts of our national cricketers who are on their second series abroad only with a tour contract. All these months SLC used the bank overdraft as an excuse for not developing cricket. Now with money in their bank account it is time they started the ball rolling.

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