Gloucestershire Cricket ‘debt-free’ in ‘seminal moment’

Gloucestershire Cricket says the club is now debt-free after receiving money from the sale of teams in The Hundred from the England and Wales Cricket Board.

All 18 first-class county teams were due more than £400,000 from the sale of the franchises, which raised around £520m to be split across the game.

A Gloucestershire statement said the proceeds had enabled them to “clear all borrowings, other than debentures, resetting its finances and providing a clean slate for the future”.

“This is a seminal moment for the club, bringing to an end more than 20 years of carrying borrowings,” said Nick Bryan, Gloucestershire treasurer.

“Savings on interest will now be reinvested into cricket operations and improving the club’s commercial performance.”

Chair Peter Matthews previously said the money would help the club become a “very financially sustainable, profitable business”.

“It saves us a ton of money on interest payments, which can now go into other things that are probably better than paying banks interest,” he told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

“The business this year, like it was last year, will be trading profitably. The problem last year was you traded profitably and lost money on interest payments.”