PSL franchises have been asked by the PCB to clear all outstanding dues by next week, despite ongoing negotiations between them to re-look at the financial model underpinning the league.
The PCB’s chief finance officer Badar Manzoor Khan has asked in an email seen by ESPNcricinfo that all the teams pay up by December 3, failing which the board reserves the right to encash the franchises’ bank guarantees.
The move has angered franchises who, in their recent meeting with the PCB in Islamabad, had formed a three-member committee to revisit the revenue-share model on which the PSL was founded, including an effort to gain tax breaks from the government. The email asking for payment has come even as the committee works towards a resolution.
One of the primary bones of contention is the franchise fee they pay every year, mainly because those payments are required to be made in US dollars. The value of the rupee, fairly stable against the dollar over the first three years of the PSL at around PKR 105 per dollar, has gone to PKR 134 now.
Though all the teams signed a ten-year contract in November 2015, according to which they were liable to pay in US dollars, the franchises want to peg the rate to 2015 standards or pay in Pakistani rupees at the same rate when the contracts were signed. None of the franchises have broken even so far, crippled they feel, by the exchange rate as well as the taxes they are having to pay.
The first set of commercial and sponsorship rights deals the PSL signed when it launched have now ended, and with enhanced deals now being inked in, as well as the scare caused by Multan Sultans’ financial meltdown, the remaining five have sensed this is the time to push for a greater slice of the revenue pool. The current financial model adopted by the PCB in 2016 offers equal shares from a central revenue pool to all franchises, despite the difference in franchise fees.
After Multan Sultans’ ouster, the PCB is yet to invite a tender to bring in an owner for the sixth side, but various investors in Pakistan including Ali Tareen – the son of Jahangir Khan Tareen, a key figure in the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party – and Aqeel Karim Dhedhi, a prominent businessman, are among those to have shown their interest. The sixth team is presently being regulated by the PCB on its own and with the tender, the board will transfer the ownership to the buyers, allowing them to choose the name of the city.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo