ZIMBABWE CRICKET

Zimbabwe Cricket look to ICC for a possible bailout

by Tristan Holme • Last updated on

ZC's new Managing Director, Faisal Hasnain is exploring the new possibility © Getty

After years of living under the weight of crippling, high-interest debts, Zimbabwe Cricket are seeking a fresh start. The organisation has approached the ICC to discuss the possibility of a bailout, in the hope that it can return to financial parity within the next three years.

"We are in discussion with the ICC as well as member boards to see how they can help us to get over the situation in which we find ourselves," ZC's new managing director Faisal Hasnain told Cricbuzz. "$20m in debt is a lot of money. You can't sustain that in an organisation like ZC where its only revenues are coming from the ICC and the India tour, which is now not going to take place until 2019."

The majority of ZC's debt currently sits with Zimbabwean banks at interest rates above 20 per cent, meaning that most of its income over the past five years has gone towards paying off interest. Even with three Indian tours during that period, that income has not been sufficient to avoid falling further into debt.

Were the ICC or another member to assist by providing a low-interest loan at international rates - generally less than four per cent - in order to clear ZC's local debts, the organisation would have the opportunity to claw its way back into the black.

"If there can be a way to effectively settle ZC's financial problems then I think within the next three years, with the plans that we are now discussing, ZC should be in a position whereby it returns to a break-even or small-profit situation," said Hasnain.

"The entire commercial side of the business at the moment is at zero level. I mean there is absolutely nothing being done about the commercial properties that we have. We need to reignite that entire part of the organisation and try and explore other avenues, not only to raise revenue, but to highlight ZC and Zimbabwe as a country. I think there are a number of opportunities out there."

Hasnain began his new role at the end of April after ZC lured him away from the ICC, where he served as chief financial officer for eight years in two separate stints. The Pakistani was part of the ICC team that looked into a similar bailout package for ZC in 2013. While that plan failed to go through, the obstacles involved have since been removed and so the prospects of success this time around appear greater.

Reports out of India have suggested that a potential bailout is the reason why ZC voted for a new financial model at the ICC meeting last month. ZC has historically been one of the BCCI's most loyal allies, raising its hand at ICC meetings whenever the BCCI did so, with the favour generally reciprocated in the form of regular India tours.

That changed last month when the new financial model, with its dramatic reduction in the BCCI's share of ICC income, was voted through despite the BCCI's opposition. That model could be officially adopted at the ICC's annual conference next month.

However ZC's decision to vote for the changes had less to do with a potential bailout than the fact it stands to earn significantly more money than it has in previous years - and more than it would under the so-called Big Three model.

"Under the previous cycle from 2007 to 2015, ZC received roughly $55-60m in ICC distributions," said Hasnain. "Under the Big Three model, ZC stood to earn $70-75m. If everything goes according to plan, under the new model Zimbabwe will be getting close to $90m. Of course that also depends on ICC revenues, which are only estimates at this stage."

© Cricbuzz