Surrey repay £70,000 in furlough money after making £5.4m profit

Surrey were edged out of a place in the T20 Blast's knockout stages by Hampshire on net run rate in 2021

Surrey have repaid £70,000 they got in UK Government Covid-19 furlough payments last year after recording a pre-tax profit of £5.4m.

The club benefitted from the return of crowds to the Oval after the pandemic.

A capacity crowd saw England's fourth Test with India, while a one-day game with Sri Lanka had a 50% crowd and the club also hosted Surrey games and Oval Invincibles matches in The Hundred.

Surrey made a loss of £1.2m in the previous year due to the pandemic.

The losses were reduced thanks to £570,000 in furlough grants and reduced business rates as county matches were forced behind closed doors in 2020.

The accounts show Surrey, who are currently top of the County Championship, had a wage bill of more than £6.7m for its entire playing and non-playing staff last season, when they qualified for Division Two of the County Championship, reached the semi-finals of the One-Day Cup and narrowly missed out on the knockout stages of the T20 Blast.

"Given the profit made by the club in the 2021-22 season, we felt that the contribution made by UK taxpayers to help keep us on our feet during the year should be returned to the government," said Surrey chairman Richard Thompson.

"We remain extremely grateful for the support provided by the government during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly during the 2020-21 financial year when the ground was only able to host a total of 4,500 fans throughout the summer."