Despite job cuts within the organisation due to the Covid pandemic, senior England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) executives including chief executive officer Tom Harrison and managing director of The Hundred competition Sanjay Patel, are all set to share 2.1 million pound bonus amount.
As per a report in The Guardian newspaper, CEO Harrison, who was paid £5,12,000 last year despite voluntary pay cut, and Patel are among the recipients of the bonus money.
Notably, there were as many as 62 job cuts last year in the ECB.
ECB chairman Ian Watmore said the executives are being rewarded for their good work amid the pandemic.
“Long-term incentive plans are widely adopted across many sectors, including sports federations, as a way of rewarding long-term performance of executives and leaders as well as encouraging retention. The ECB’s LTIPs were created to take us through the negotiations of the last media rights cycle, the implementation of the Inspiring Generations strategy and the first two years of its delivery,” Watmore said.
“The performance of the ECB’s leadership across the pandemic has been exceptional and they were among the first to commit to significant voluntary pay and incentive cuts in 2020. The LTIPs began in 2017 and will mature in January 2022. The board is considering what, if anything, will replace them from 2022 onwards,” he added.
On the other hand, Harrison said that the current year has seen improvement.
“(The losses last year were) punishing for the game. There’s an impact on our ability to do all of the things we wanted to do… including infrastructure funds, and plans for increasing the [ECB] reserves have suffered a setback,” Harrison was quoted as saying in the paper.
“This year has so far been a good recovery. Given limited crowds for the Blast and early season audiences there will still be a significant impact on the county game. But it feels like we are emerging from the Covid crisis,” he added.