Lancashire faces significant financial repercussions after the fifth test between England and India at Old Trafford was canceled
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Fifth test between England and India canceled due to Covid-19 fears
Lancashire’s chairman Daniel Gidney said the club faced “multi-million pound losses” after the last test between England and India was canceled.
After a fourth positive coronavirus test among India’s backroom employees on Thursday, the game was canceled hours in advance due to “fears of a further increase in the number of COVID cases” in the Indian warehouse.
The cancellation will have a major financial impact on Lancashire, who hosted the game at Old Trafford.
The area with 22,000 seats was sold out on the first three days of the test and had also sold around 20,000 tickets for the fourth day.
Lancashire faces significant financial repercussions after the fifth test between England and India at Old Trafford was canceled
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Image:
Stu Forster / Getty Images)
All ticket holders are fully refundable and after an already difficult financial year for the county, Gidney has warned it will be a huge cost to Lancashire.
He said, “These are unprecedented circumstances. We are currently in weakening mode. We have to work this through with the ECB.
“How high are our losses? We are talking about considerable sums here. We are talking about seven-digit amounts. It’s several million pounds. It’s very challenging. We need to work with the ECB and others to help us do this. “
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He added: “We have a lot of people who volunteered with us for five days. We have to work through that.
“We had built up reserves, but the first six months of the pandemic effectively consumed all of that.
“So we’re really back to zero. But we’re a resilient club: We went through two world wars and a pandemic. We’ll work our way through that.”
Lancashire has also “donated all surplus prepared food for players, hospitality and media guests to several local charities”.
Angela Hodson, Lancashire Sales Director, said, “The club had catered for thousands of guests for five days and once we received confirmation that the game was canceled, our minds turned to how to get our excess food in quickly the community can distribute.
“Everyone at Emirates Old Trafford hopes that this small gesture can make a positive difference in our community this weekend.”
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In the meantime, ECB chief Tom Harrison has told Sky Sports that they are working “tooth and nail” to ensure that the financial impact is “as low as possible”.
“Of course that has financial implications,” he said. “We are now taking steps to mitigate this, to make sure that the things we do now are rescheduled or the schedule is re-examined to see how we can minimize the impact of such a thing.
“You lose an India friendly and that has financial implications, of course. We’re just trying to work tooth and nail to make sure that is as limited as possible.”
