Cricket counties will face automatic points deductions for making repeated losses under strict new financial rules that will be introduced next season.
The Guardian has learned that the England and Wales Cricket Board is planning to bring in its own version of football’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) underpinned by points deductions in a shadow form next year to give counties time to adjust, before fixed punishments for clubs that fail to break even are introduced in 2028.
The proposed new rules are understood to be similar to the financial framework operated by the Premier League and EFL, whose clubs are limited to making losses of £105m and £39m respectively over a rolling three-year period.
The Premier League is dropping PSR next season in favour of new regulations that will cap player spending to 85% of a club’s football revenues, but the EFL’s profitability and sustainability limits will remain in place.
Under the ECB’s version of PSR, counties would be required to show they are running profitable businesses over a four-year period, with fixed tariffs in place for those that consistently lose money.
The counties’ accounts would be monitored in real time by the ECB, who would have powers to intervene at the end of each financial year.
An overspend in year one would result in an official warning from the ECB, followed by a suspended points deduction in year two and points being docked in year three if they continued to post losses.
The ECB says it is acting to ensure the counties operate as sustainable businesses rather than relying on handouts from Lord’s and windfalls from the sale of the eight Hundred franchises, which raised about £500m for the sport last year.
The allocation of the Hundred money – with £18m due to the host venues and £24m to the non-hosts – is already a source of tension with the counties, with the ECB insisting it can only be used for infrastructure projects or to pay off debts, rather than assisting with operating costs.
The proposed new rules are also a response to the financial plight of Sussex, who were docked 12 points at the start of the season after being placed in special measures by the ECB for posting an operating loss of £1.33m last year due to high spending on player wages.
Yorkshire and Middlesex have also experienced financial problems in recent years, but the latter have been unable to access any of the Hundred funding as they have no debt and as long-term tenants at Lord’s do not own their ground.
Counties are already subject to an annual salary cap of £3.17m for their men’s squads (£3.52m for Surrey and Middlesex), but will be forced to demonstrate profitability for the first time from next year.
This is likely to be challenging for the 11 non-Hundred counties in particular, of whom only Gloucestershire are forecast to make a profit this year.
There are growing fears among the smaller counties that the sale of the Hundred franchises will cause them to fall further behind the bigger venues, particularly if the new owners demand a bigger share of the ECB’s next TV deal, which will go to market next year before starting in the summer of 2028.
The Hundred is sold as part of a package with all England’s home international cricket, and given a value of around £50m a year by Sky Sports, but many of the new franchise owners would like to test the market by trying to sell it separately with a view to keeping most of the revenue.
