The Coronavirus pandemic has shown the global economy it's worst time as of yet and it is not going to slow down shortly as it stands. Like every other sector, global sports has also taken a huge hit and cricket is not far from it. The treasurer of the governing body of Indian cricket BCCI, Arun Dhumal, has had his say on this in the latest interview session with Cricbuzz.
Mr Dhumal is concerned about the huge amount of hit that BCCI will have to take financially due to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked about the assessed amount, he said, "We'll be able to assess it once we know when we're going to start [the cricket]. As of now, every bilateral that we miss, we'll be losing money. And if we're not able to organise IPL then that'll lead to a big hit. Not having an IPL would end up with a revenue loss of about INR 4000 crore."
When asked about the future plans of the BCCI regarding the IPL and what are they going to prioritize on, for the time being, Dhumal said, Priority for BCCI is health and safety of the cricketers, nothing else. Once there is an opportunity available, there is a window, we'd like to organise it [IPL]."
Regarding the plans of reviving cricket as a global sport once again, the BCCI treasurer said, "There is an 8-year FTP that has already been chalked out by the ICC that is there till 2023. Now every cricket board will be struggling because of the virus."
He added, "Everybody needs to sit across a table and work out their strategies on how to bring cricket back and how to make up for their losses because all of the boards are going to be suffering these losses and it would affect everyone, and it would impact everyone, all the stakeholders. Once the cricket resumes, we'll talk it out with all the boards and help each other and revive world cricket."
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