PCB take 'Lion's share' out of CLT20 appearance fee for Lahore

Karachi: The Pakistan Cricket Board has taken close to 60 percent of the appearance money earned by the Lahore Lions team during the recently concluded Champions League T20 in India paying Muhammad Hafeez and Co only USD 100,000 out of the USD 500,000 for their hardwork.

According to reliable sources, the PCB has pocketed $275,000 out of the appearance fees while out of the remaining amount $125,000 has been deducted as tax and the remaining $100,000 will be distributed among the players.

A source in the Lahore Lions team said that their captain Hafeez had however managed to convince the PCB to allow the players to distribute the prize money they won for qualifying for the main rounds.

"The money earned from playing in the main rounds comes to around $200,000 and this amount the PCB has said can be distributed by the players. This means the players have a total pool of $300,000 to distribute among themselves," the source told PTI.

"Each player should earn around $17 to 18,000 from the Champions League," he added.

The Lahore team failed to narrowly qualify for the semi-finals of the Champions League T20.

In the past also the Sialkot Stallions and Faisalabad Wolves teams which represented Pakistan in the Champions League had a dispute with the PCB over the distribution of the appearance fees.

"If the Lahore Lions team had not qualified for the main rounds than they would have had just $100,000 to distribute among the 15 member squad plus officials."

The source said the manager who was nominated by the PCB to go with the Lahore Lions team had submitted a very positive report about the tour itself.

"Manager Shafiq Ahmed has praised the hospitality and care given to the Lahore team throughout the tour. He has noted that for most of the Lahore Lions players the Champions League was a big learning curve as they had never travelled before in business class or stayed in five star hotels and got sizeable daily allowances."

The manager has also mentioned the fact that even when the players went out they were given special discounts by the Indian shopkeepers and restaurant owners.