Somerset chief executive: "We do not have the appetite to take on the debt"

Lee Cooper has addressed the county's decision not to apply for the latest round of major domestic and international venue allocations

Somerset's chief executive Lee Cooper has made a statement regarding Taunton's absence from the latest major domestic and international match allocations.

Last week the ECB announced which venues would host major domestic and international matches from 2020-2024, the Cooper Associates County Ground was not one of the venues to feature.

In a message on Somerset's website, Cooper said: “Many of you will have seen that the England and Wales Cricket Board last week announced the ten venues that will host high profile international and domestic men’s matches for the five-year period from 2020.

“It won’t have escaped your attention that the Cooper Associates County Ground was not amongst that list and I feel that in order to quell a great deal of speculation and rumour it is important for Somerset County Cricket Club to outline our position.

“As a Club we do not have the appetite to take on the debt that achieving a capacity of 15,000 would incur" 

“When we were awarded the England v South Africa IT20 for 2017 it was made quite clear to us that we would not be eligible to apply for further fixtures in this vein until we met the minimum criteria, which is 15,000 seats within the venue.

“As a Club we do not have the appetite to take on the debt that achieving a capacity of 15,000 would incur and consequently we did not apply for this latest round of fixtures.

“What we would rather do is make Taunton the very best County Ground in the country with a capacity of up to 12,000 spectators.

“Having said that, we will be actively lobbying for high profile matches to be held here where possible and we do expect to host some smaller international fixtures that have yet to be scheduled.

“Let us not forget that we will be staging three matches during next year’s ICC World Cup which is a tremendous honour for the Club and the region as a whole. I have no doubt that these fixtures will be extremely well attended and that we will once again demonstrate to cricket supporters from all over the world that we are more than capable of staging highly successful international fixtures.”