Cash-trapped PCB fails to deliver under Butt

Karachi: Already cash-trapped Pakistan Cricket Board is seriously struggling to meet their various expenses while eagerly waiting for earnings of the ODI series against Australia played in Abu Dhabi earlier this year.

Well-informed sources in the PCB said that financial state has touched a new low as even the contractors, who were building a new enclosure and block at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, had started complaining about not getting their dues on time.

EXPERT THREATENS TO MOVE COURT

Worse, a Pakistani biomechanic expert who was employed three months ago at National Cricket Academy has threatened to move court for non-payment of salaries and a contractual breach by the PCB.

"The expert was hired three months back but he has not been paid his salary as yet and worse the director human resources (Wasim Bari) recently told him that his services were no longer required. The man has now threatened to go to court," the source said.

Sources informed that the PCB had also still not received the revenues from the ODI series due to some contractual problems.

However, another source insisted that the PCB's financial health will improve soon as Pakistan will get Champions Trophy hosting fee of USD 7,50,000 from the ICC and also share from the Twenty20 World Cup which they won in England two months ago.

DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES

Board employees have been complaining and grumbling in recent months as the PCB chairman Ejaz Butt has held back payment of annual bonus to the employees as well due to weak financial health of the body.

LEGAL BATTLES ADD TO WOES

"To complicate matters the board has spent thousands of dollars and rupees on paying legal fees to the London based law firm D L Piper for handling the legal case against the ICC over 2011 World Cup and also to Tafazzul Rizvi for handling the cases in the local courts pertaining to the ban on (pace bowler) Shoaib Akhtar and shifting of World Cup secretariat," one source said.

The source also said that the board was involved in legal battles in Karachi with the taxation department over payment of taxes.

MARKETING MANAGER QUITS

PCB suffered yet another setback with long serving marketing manager Khurrum Malik submitting his resignation, citing dissatisfaction with the functioning of the Board.

After the resignations of Chief Selector Abdul Qadir and Aamer Sohail, sources in the Board said that Malik had also submitted his resignation with a 30-day notice, saying he was not happy with the working of the PCB under Butt.

"Since taking over as Chairman last October, Butt has had problems with former Test captain Javed Miandad, Abdul Qadir, Aamer Sohail and now even Malik," the source said.

BUTT IN TROUBLE

The development came on the same day that the Chairman of the national assembly standing committee on sports, Jamshed Khan Dasti urged the President and Prime Minister to sack Butt as he had failed to move cricket in the right direction.

Sources said the situation had become so bad in the Board that Butt was only depending on the director of human resources Wasim Bari and his relative Mohammad Naeem, who is a financial advisor to the Board.

"No file is moving at all. All things are marked to Bari and Naeem. No other official is being consulted at all," one source said.

The source disclosed that recently even Saleem Altaf, the chief operating officer of the board had had a argument with Butt over the way things were functioning in the Board.

The domestic cricket committee is waiting for the Chairman to approve the domestic programme and schedule for the coming season but this has also been held up, the source said.

"The sad part is that there were so many high hopes from this set-up that involved so many former players. But unfortunately it has all gone down the drain since the Chairman is not willing to trust anyone at all," the source stated.