Auckland: New Zealand Cricket is set to make reduction its staff as they brace themselves for an expected fall in revenue to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
During the early days of the pandemic, NZC had asked its staff to use up annual leave and put them onto four-day working weeks.
“It would be fair to say it’s a significant reduction from that revenue, hence these significant cuts. We have our priorities for the year which we’re not compromising and we’re investing in those. The cuts are coming from NZC, $6 million, of which $1.5m is staff,” stuff.co.nz quoted NZC chief executive David White as saying.
NZC is currently looking to make NZD 6 million in savings of which NZD 1.5 million would be coming from the job cuts that are expected to hit their operations at head office in Auckland and the base office at Lincoln near Christchurch.
Currently, all international cricket has been suspended since March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Bangladesh is slated to play Bangladesh, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka during their home summer, but the fate of all these series hangs in the balance due to the coronavirus.
It is also not known whether these series will take place with crowd attending or not.
The fate of the T20 World Cup is also not known and there can be major funding impact if the tournament in Australia is postponed.
“What we are experiencing is what I imagine most businesses in New Zealand are experiencing at the moment. It’s a really challenging situation and we’ve just got to work through it the best we can to ensure NZ Cricket remains strong and viable, and all our members do as well,” White said.
New Zealand was slated to play three-match ODI series against Australia in March, but after the first ODI, the remaining two matches were postponed due to the coronavirus.
Both boards have now said they hope to complete that series and the postponed T20I series that was due to be played in New Zealand in late March.