Central Highlands board president Ron Jennings has insinuated that Cricket Victoria is using the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse for its mass job cuts.
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CH cricket manager Tom McCarthy, participation officer Joel Quarrell and coaching and talent specialist Stephen Field have all been made redundant as part of CV's widespread restructure.
"It's highly likely that they will blame funding cuts from Cricket Australia and other resources, but our understanding is that they may well have had budgetary problems anyway," Jennings said.
CV chief executive Andrew Ingleton responded to Jennings' comments.
"We've made a prudent judgement call based on the economic uncertainties we're confronted with," he said.
"We know we will see a material cut to our funding from Cricket Australia. We also recognise there are risks to the revenue streams we generate including securing new sponsors in a commercial market under pressure and further uncertainty around other revenue streams including BBL ticket sales and memberships.
"The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic are a fundamental reason for the overall economic uncertainty and it's incumbent on us to respond.
"In implementing the changes we have made, we are not setting out to undo everything that has been done so well in Ballarat and the Central Highlands region but we can no longer afford the service levels we previously had in place.
"Given these changes, we know we will have to work closely with the local community to deliver solutions which build on the strong foundations that have been laid."