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SLC will find themselves in a deeper financial hole if the SLPL fails to take place this year

The Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL) looks highly unlikely to go ahead this year after numerous franchise owners started to withdraw their support due to the heavy losses they incurred at the end of the inaugural edition of the tournament.

The inaugural edition of the SLPL was not as big of a success as it could have been since no Indian players participated, which effectively cut off the tournament’s chances of injecting some cash into Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC) pockets from the lucrative Indian market.

“We have a problem this year,” Sri Lanka’s sports minister, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, told Ceylon Today. “The franchise owners are pulling out, the tournament is in trouble.

“Whether we like or not, we should understand how important India is to a cricketing economy like ours. Without India nothing will be successful. We (the sports ministry) are going to discuss this with Sri Lanka Cricket and see what is the best they could do.”

When asked by ESPNcricinfo about the franchise pull-outs, SLPL tournament director Ajit Jayasekara refused to comment on the situation, but noted that he was unaware of any franchise owners withdrawing their support and funding.

However, Sandiip Bhammer of Somerset Entertainment Ventures, who are the SLPL’s main promotion partner, was more open about the situation of the league.

“I have no clue of any pull-outs,” Bhammer told ESPNcricinfo. “All the franchises are very much in and the tournament is very much on. The international players have signed letters of intent and we are looking ahead to the draft in the last week of this month.”

None of the seven SLPL franchises were sold, but instead, they were leased on a seven-year period by SLC.

However, Jayasekara stated that the seven-year lease policy was the only flaw he knew about.

“The franchisees have asked for an extension of their lease, so that they can recover their costs – that’s the only issue,” he said. “We have sent that for approval to the ministry, as we do with all major decisions, and they may have consulted the attorney general about it.”

The SLPL postponed their inaugural edition in 2011 after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) refused to issue no objection certificates to the Indian players.

The BCCI did the same thing in 2012, but cited the New Zealand series as the main reason why they had objected to issuing no objection certificates.

The SLPL has barely helped SLC’s mounting debts, which remain at an all-time high after they built two new stadiums and renovated another one for the 2011 International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup.

If this year’s SLPL fails to go ahead as planned, SLC could find themselves in an even deeper financial hole.