JCA pulls stumps on local cricket
Published:Thursday | August 27, 2020 | 12:14 AMRobert Bailey/Gleaner Writer
Following the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in Jamaica, Courtney Francis, chief operating officer at the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA), says all local cricketing events will be suspended until the end of the December.
Francis’ announcement comes days after the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) decided to cancel all sporting competitions for the Christmas term of the 2020-2021 academic year amid the rise in COVID-19 cases in the island.
“What the JCA has done is to cancel all cricket competitions for the rest of the year,” said Francis.
“We just have to wait and see like everybody else, because nobody knows what the outcome is going to be, and so as (protocols are relaxed) with regard to the government guidelines, then we will make a different assessment, come December, to determine how we move forward come January,” Francis added.
“This has affected everybody and we have to be responsible enough to make sure that when we go back out there, we go back out there in a safe environment,” Francis said.
He underlined that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the cancellation of a number of JCA-run competitions, including the Senior Cup and Junior Cup, as well as the 50 overs tournament.
“It is a significant setback for us because our development programmes have been affected, our income has been affected, and so all aspects of the JCA have been affected like everywhere else,” he said.
ZERO INCOME
“We have zero income now because all our international games for this year have been cancelled and that is where a lot of our revenue comes from, and so we would have been having zero revenue, while we still have to be paying our expenses,” Francis explained.
“We were scheduled to have South Africa’s female team and South Africa’s male team here ... those were things that were pre-planned; and with those out of the loop, significant revenue would have been lost,” he stated.
Francis stated that his organisation has been closely monitoring all aspects of its operations to ensure that all its players and workers are protected in the best way possible from the disease.
“We are keeping a close eye on this virus, because we just had a case here with Dennis Bulli that we managed properly. We have altered our working hours and we altered the staff attending work, and so I believe that we have done our part well enough,” he shared.