Serious concerns have been raised by several International Cricket Council (ICC) members over the recently-held T20 World Cup 2024 which India won by beating South Africa in the final in Bridgetown, reported the Times of India (TOI) on Sunday.
The financial aspects of the tournament have been questioned by some ICC members and the cricket regulating body decided to conduct a “thorough” audit of the tournament at its upcoming annual meeting which is scheduled for July 19 to 22 in Colombo.
The World Cup was hosted in the United States (USA) and West Indies and the decision to conduct an audit is due to reports of notable expenses sustained during the matches held in the USA.
The Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York was the central venue for marquee matches, including the most anticipated match of the World Cup between Pakistan and India, and there are doubts that the stadium was not suitable to hold such high-voltage clashes.
“The auditing is still on. There are assumptions that ICC may have incurred losses in ticketing as well in the USA leg. The tournament looked mismanaged. The performance of the New York stadium wasn’t up to the mark,” an ICC source told TOI.
“The board will discuss how the organizing committee may have overshot the allocated budget. It was always going to be a herculean task to take mainstream cricket to USA. The ICC team has worked hard to conduct the tournament but expenses need to be checked at the same time,” the source added.
Recently, Chris Tetley, the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s Head of Events, and Claire Furlong, the General Manager of Marketing and Communications, resigned on Friday.
However, their resignations have nothing to do with the upcoming audit as they had decided to resign a long time ago.
