Sethi wants PSL registered as an independent entity

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Super League (PSL) Chairman Najam Sethi wants PSL to be registered as an independent entity so as to cut down on hefty taxes paid by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the franchises.

Sethi, who is also head of the central executive committee PCB, made a bid to register PSL as an independent entity.

Sethi took up the case with the finance ministry but the negotiations fell through the only concession was the overseas players getting a tax free salary.

The idea is to make it a nonprofit (body) registering it as separate company to allow PCB to re invest the net profits into development of cricket, ESPN cricinfo quoted Sethi as saying.

He said right now it is still in the pipeline and may not be an easy task.

Although we sought seed money from the PCB budget for the first edition we will have our own budgets from next year.

We thought it will be a PCB owned company but absolutely independent and whatever money PSL makes it will go down into development which will be exempted from tax he said.

He said the PCB is considering the prospect of adding another team to PSL with the possibility of the sixth team being named Kashmir after the province of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan.

However according to a contract signed between the PCB and the franchises the number of teams cannot be increased until the third edition.

We will not have [a new team] until the third year that is written, Sethi confirmed.

But at the same time we are looking at the financials about the addition of a sixth team in terms of whether it will be Kashmir Faisalabad Sialkot or Gilgit, Baltistan or any other team.

We have to weigh up the pros and cons and without the franchises consent we can t make it.

He said we have to offer guarantee to the teams that they will be better off by having a sixth team and have to convince them.

I have my team working on different values and estimated profits andrevenues before pitching this idea to them but this idea is definitely under consideration.

Basically the advice from our finance department is that this is the high time to add sixth team as the values are very high at this stage before the second edition.

We have to cash in the hype we have created from the first edition, he said.