Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust chairman Tony Shepherd has defended the spending of the organisation as it bids to ward off insolvency, saying coronavirus and its financial impact was "nothing we could have predicted".

The SCG emailed its more than 18,000 members last week telling them it could not afford to refund them as it faced a “desperate situation” brought on by COVID-19 and its impact on sport.

The SCG’s finances are hurting without sport being played.Credit:AAP

It is a devastating turn of events for one of Sydney’s most prestigious and powerful institutions, which has a 13-year waitlist to join as a member and boasts as trustees broadcaster Alan Jones, Harvey Norman chief executive Katie Page and corporate heavyweight Shepherd.

Sources told the Herald the situation was so bleak that there had even been difficulty paying suppliers but Shepherd said he had been assured they were being paid, insisting funds had not completely dried up.

“We are not broke,” he said on Tuesday. “We are working on a skeleton crew. We’ve got enough money to keep going but we can’t afford to repay or members or anything like that. We need that cash.

“We’re being prudent because we don’t know how long this crisis is going to last. It’s nothing that we could have predicted, it’s nothing that we could have protected ourselves against.”

Tony Shepherd.Credit:Brook Mitchell

Shepherd said what small surplus the SCG usually made it tipped back into maintaining and improving its facilities including the famous cricket ground itself and its stands.

Financial records show the government statutory body’s total revenue for 2018/19 was $109m, $24m of which came via memberships, and as at February 28, 2019 it had $18.2m in cash. Instead of a small profit the costs of relocating member facilities and tenants such as NRL premiers Sydney Roosters during the $800m rebuild of Allianz Stadium contributed to an operating loss of $27m. According to its most recent annual report, operating expenses totalled $88m and $19m was paid to executives and staff including CEO Kerrie Mather, whose base salary was $523,752.

To confront the current predicament, executives have taken pay cuts, Shepherd said, while others including about 600 match-day casuals now find themselves out of work.

“We are not a profit-making organisation,” Shepherd said. “What we try and do is try and provide the best facilities we can within a budget so that sports can continue to play there.

“Some of those old stands … like the Members Stand and the Ladies Stand and the Churchill/Brewongle and the O’Reilly require a lot of maintenance just to keep them going. The old ones are over 100 years old. And we’ve also got to look after the field. This year we replaced all of the grass at the SCG – that doesn’t come cheaply.

“When the two stadiums are up and running we’re running over $1 billion in assets. We do not get the gate [revenue] – it goes to the clubs and codes. We make our money out of food and beverage, the members and a little bit of corporate and advertising.”

With the old Allianz Stadium demolished and out of action until the new 45,000-seat venue is completed, Shepherd conceded the shutdown of sport at the SCG was a “double whammy for members”, who can pay one-off amounts of $11,000 and annual fees to have full access to the precinct.

Members, however, have been told they can't be refunded "given the complexity of our current financial position and the absolute need to keep the SCG functioning as it has since the 1850s".

Asked whether the Trust would need a bailout from the state government to remain afloat, Shepherd was confident it wouldn't but that it would depend on how long sport remains suspended.

"We’ll make it but we don’t have money coming out of our ears, that’s for sure," he said.

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