Yorkshire CCC will never be in such a sorry state again says Colin Graves after announcing huge financial losses

Graves rode to the rescue for a second time in December with a refinancing package for a club that he first saved in 2002.

The latest results came in spite of the fact that revenue increased by £4m to £18m on the back of a lucrative Ashes Test match.

“The accounts do not make for pretty reading,” said Graves, with the club recording a pre-tax loss of £7,155,981 if you include the impairment of fixed assets (a write-down in the value of Headingley stadium) of £4,323,218, along with exceptional items of £1,896,082 mainly arising from the racism crisis/legal fees.

“In fact, they are horrendous, but that’s what we’ve inherited.

"It’s not a good picture financial-wise.

“Some of the things are alarming to say the least, but all I want to do now is put the past behind us.

“There is a hell of a lot of work still to do but we’ve bottomed the pit and hopefully we’ll come out the other side in the next two to three months.

“£3m has already been injected into the club. There is another £3m to come in.

"The black hole we found was roughly £6m that we owed creditors and various other people. There’s light at the end of the tunnel.

“Some of the costs that we’ve incurred, such as compensation payments, have been significant. Some of the salaries that were being given out were absolutely unrealistic.

“How anybody could sign a club up to those kind of salaries, I can’t get my head around it (Darren Gough, the former managing director of cricket, was on circa £260,000 a year plus benefits - the highest paid DoC in the country).

“That didn’t take much working out from the first day that I walked through the door, but that’s where we are.

“What I will say is that the last thing I’m going to let happen is Yorkshire to get into the mess that it’s got into again.

“It’s happened twice - there won’t be a third time.

"We’ll protect the ground and the club going forward.”

Graves did not rule out staff redundancies as the new regime looks forensically at the business, with further savings likely behind the scenes.

In addition to what he called “exorbitant salaries”, there has been an increase in staff headcount owing largely to governance changes deemed necessary after the racism crisis.

“We’re still evaluating all of that,” said Graves of the staffing situation. “What I will say is that the staff that were here through a very tough time have done an exceptional job to keep us where we are.

“We’ve got to look at the costs of the business, of what we need in each department, and then we’ll structure it accordingly.

“Nobody wants to go into a round of redundancies, but in certain areas that might have to happen, but no decision has been made and we’re still looking at it.

“This year is going to be hard, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve got no Test match. We’ve got to be realistic.

“A Test match for this ground brings £2m-£3m into the revenue streams, so it’s one of the worst years that we could have picked it up, to be honest.”

At a rough calculation, the racism crisis has cost Yorkshire around £5.5m in the last three years in terms of exceptional expenditure.

Reputational damage has of course been significant, but despite government pressure that they could do without, with the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) select committee stating on Friday that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) must “closely monitor” the Graves regime to prevent a return to “business as usual”, sponsors are showing keen interest after walking away en masse in 2021.

“In the last four weeks alone we’ve got three new sponsors,” said Graves, with the club having worked tirelessly to rebuild its sponsorship base.

“They’re not minor sponsors either,” he added, “they’re big sponsors who have put in virtually over £100,000 each, so all of that is looking very positive.

“There’s other people we’re talking to as well, and any talk of us losing sponsorship isn’t true; we’ve got new ones coming in all the time.”

Amid suggestions that Graves might ultimately sell Yorkshire to outside investors, thereby relinquishing its status as a members’ club, he reiterated that he does not have “a crystal ball” as to how cricket will evolve.

However, he pledged: “I guarantee that members’ rights for watching cricket, for buying international tickets and doing all the things they do as members will be protected. There will not be anything taken away. Members will always be protected.

“Regarding the assets, regarding the ownership and all that kind of thing, we’ve got to look at that going forward to make sure that we protect the ground and the club.”

Sign up to the new Sports Editor’s Team Talk newsletter direct to your inbox