USA Cricket discloses $650K in debts, confirms cancellation of men’s national championships.
More details of USA Cricket’s worrying financial situation were unveiled during an Annual General Meeting on Sunday in Los Angeles, as a financial audit showed that the governing body was approximately $650,000 in debt by the end of 2021.
The report showed that USA Cricket had net positive assets of $868,000 at the start of 2021, but had subsequently overspent projected budgets by $1.5 million during the calendar year. This included spending $400,000 to host Ireland in December 2021, a series that had not been budgeted for at the start of the year and was only hastily announced in November 2021.
Another section of the report showed that USA Cricket had budgeted $136,000 in administrative costs, but wound up totalling just short of $800,000 in administrative expenses. No explanation was provided as to what these excess administrative expenses were. The report also showed that USA Cricket had expected to receive $1.1 million in sponsorship money for 2021, but only wound up receiving $829,000.
**Following the financial report presented by newly appointed treasurer Kuljit Singh-Nijjar, it was stated by fellow board member Avinash Gaje that USA Cricket’s financial accounts currently remain unreconciled.
“We are still discovering some expenses coming through that were not documented,” Gaje said after the financial report was presented. “We have done 80-85% of the reconciliation and there is still more to come.”**
USA Cricket interim board chairman Atul Rai also told members that the organisation was identifying CEO candidates and hoped to announce a new CEO shortly. This contradicted Rai’s own words from the letter sent out to members on September 30 in which he said that “until we bring back financial stability and we are able to balance our budgets, we will not be able to move forward with any such appointments”. The role has been vacant since Iain Higgins resigned in November 2021.
(source: Cricinfo)