Queensland Cricket has joined Cricket Victoria, the South Australian Cricket Association and Cricket Tasmania in cutting jobs due to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Queensland governing body has confirmed a restructure will remove 32 full- time jobs, equating to about 29 per cent of its staff. So far, a total of 135 jobs have been lost among the states, comprising South Australia (23), Tasmania (20), Victoria (60) and now Queensland (32).
Queensland’s high-performance department will account for the biggest reduction. Men’s coach Wade Seccombe and women’s mentor Ashley Noffke will become head of male and female performance respectively, taking on a bigger workload as part of the restructure. The move follows moves by Cricket Australia (CA) to cut grants to state associations by 25 per cent. Queensland Cricket and Cricket NSW remain the only states yet to sign off on the new arrangement, but Queensland Cricket noted in a statement there had been an “acceptance of the inevitable 25 per cent decrease in grants from the national body”. Queensland Cricket chief executive Terry Svenson suggested his organisation realised it needed to “act now”. He said “A lot of difficult decisions have been made and we continue to offer support for those employees whose roles have been made redundant. Queensland is understood to have informed Brisbane grade clubs that their grants from the state association will not be affected this year, even as cutbacks are made in community cricket staff and also the structure and size of the Brisbane Heat's backroom.
In its most recent annual report, Queensland Cricket declared reserves of about A$7.6 million among total assets worth A$18.3 million. Svenson's explained that the 2020-21 season would be likely to play out without any revenue derived from spectators. While revenue from tickets and corporate sales for international matches are collected by CA before forming a portion of state distributions, money from Big Bash League attendances and corporate boxes flow directly to the state associations. The Brisbane Heat have drawn consistently strong crowds to the Gabba despite fluctuating results, averaging around 25,000 to rank behind only the Adelaide Strikers and Melbourne Stars for attendance.
Brian Sturgess
