Sri Lanka Premier League bowled by bankrupt franchisees
Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:07
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Sri Lanka Cricket yesterday declared that the Mahindra SLPL 2013 scheduled to commence on 10 August 2013 will not take place.
It said the cancellation was due to the fact that the franchisees have failed to pay the franchise consideration for this year and more importantly have failed to deposit with SLC the bank guarantees to secure the player payments.
This move is sure to be devastating for Sri Lanka Cricket as the Premier League Series was a guaranteed income generator, bringing in an overwhelming Rs. 289 million income last year.
All eight franchises, and SEV, are understood to have made a loss from the first season, while SLC achieved a profit.
Reports said although the agreement with franchise holders initially stipulated a 25-year period, due to requests and discussions held among the relevant parties, the franchise period was brought down to seven years.
However this concession granted has still not been sufficient to guarantee the continuous support of the franchise holders in the second year of the Premier League Series.
This year, despite three franchise holders claiming their support and enthusiasm in seeing another edition of the Premier League, their support too was conditional on the backing of the entire group of franchise holders.
Sri Lanka Cricket officials had expressed their disappointment in the lack of commitment shown by franchise holders, especially following the board’s agreement to their various demands and requests. As none of the franchise holders made the relevant bank guarantees for the various fees including that of the players’ fees by the given deadline, the board together with the organisers had no choice but to cancel the 2013 edition.
Additionally, the current year has not been a highly profitable one for the board and grave decisions are likely to be made in the wake of this event. Furthermore a three test match series with South Africa who begin their tour of Sri Lanka this week was also cancelled due to the Premier League Series scheduled to begin in August this year.
Match fixing scandals attributed to various Sri Lanka Premier League franchises together with defaults in payments to Sri Lanka Cricket have dealt blow after blow to the pride and Treasury of the SLC.
