Afghanistan Have Already Been Hit By Some Key Sponsors Pulling Out:
The postponement of the Asia Cup is set to place further pressure on the Cricket Board of Afghanistan. On 9 July, the Asian Cricket Council announced that they were preparing to hold the Asia Cup in June 2021 as they postponed the competition as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recently, Ehsan Mani, Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), told Cricbuzz that the postponement of the Asia Cup will have a huge financial effect on developing cricket nations.
Echoing Mani ‘s feelings, was Chief Executive Officer of ACB, Luftullah Stanikzai.
“It is clear that the postponement of the Asia Cup would have a negative financial effect on ACB ‘s revenue this year. Nonetheless, because the event has not been canceled and is just delayed so that we hope to obtain the allocated funding next year,’ Stanikzai told the leading sports website.
ACB had recently slashed the salary of their foreign coaching staff by 50 percent for the month of June due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that is likely to be the same for the upcoming months considering they were banking on the Asia Cup and five-match T20 series against Zimbabwe, which isn’t part of the Future Tours Programme (FTP). The list contains 32 senior cricketers and 55 domestic cricketers.
Four participating nations of the Asia Cup – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, receive around two million USD as participation fees and though Afghanistan was not set to get the same amount, they were expecting to receive a sizable portion for taking part in the tournament.
ACB has also sustained financial loss following the cancelation of its contract last year by the Alokozay Group of Companies (AGC)-considered to be one of its main sponsors. To make matters worse, Tyka, an Indian company that had signed with the ACB as an apparel partner, has terminated its two-year deal, which is supposed to continue until the end of 2020 due to the pandemic shutdown.
The ACB is getting worse, with questions lingering about the men’s T20 World Cup scheduled to take place in Australia later this year.
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