CWI in the red but full salaries paid

Despite admitting that their finances were in dire straits, President of Cricket West Indies (CWI) Ricky Skerritt has revealed that staff and players are now receiving their full salaries again after agreeing to a 50 per cent pay-cut last year.

It was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic which left CWI facing a major loss of income in the absence of regular cricketing activities, that CWI enforced pay cuts across the board, but the president has now revealed that all salaries are back to normal, even if only temporarily.

“The cut doesn’t exist at the moment…but let me just remind you (the cut) was part of the crisis management strategy,” he told Line & Length on Sportsmax over the weekend.

“We had put in place what we had called a financial strategy advisory committee which was a small task force combined from our finance committee and our audit risk along with the compliance committee, the CEO (Johnny Grave) and myself.

“The pandemic isn’t over but we have relaxed one of those conditions, which is we are back to full remuneration,” said the 64-year-old Kittitian.

According to auditors KPMG, the Board’s financial records show that CWI’s liabilities exceeds assets and raised the “material uncertainty” about the sports organisation’s ability to keep operating indefinitely.

“We draw attention to Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements, which describes that the group’s revenue is cyclical in nature and depends on the popularity of the various reciprocal tours undertaken by West Indies teams,” the independent auditor’s report said.

“As of September 30, 2020, the group’s current liabilities exceeded its current assets by US$14,836,946 and its total liabilities exceeded its total assets by US$10,747,720.

“These events or conditions, along with other matters as set forth in Note 2, indicate that a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the group’s ability to continue as a going concern. Our opinion is not modified in respect of this matter.” Skeritt, who was just handed another two-year term along with his vice president, Vincentian Dr Kishore Shallow, also indicated there were much better relations with stakeholders, players and staff over the last two years.

“The whole process is to not distract players away from their focus on cricket as far as possible and doesn’t give any interventions or any intrusions from an administrative or management level that can cause the players any kind of distress or any kind of unnatural concerns to do with the environment they find themselves in whether on tour or not,” the CWI president said. (SportsMax)