The British Cycling Federation is putting a third of its workforce temporarily out of work to prepare for a £4 million loss due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

CEO Julie Harrington announced Wednesday that 90 staff will be temporarily laid off under the UK's new Job Retention Scheme. The scheme is intended to avoid redundancies and protect businesses by allowing them to take employees off the payroll while they are out of work.

Harrington herself, along with other members of her leadership team, will take a 10% pay cut.

British Cycling is partly funded by public money through UK Sport, but unlike some national federations, in recent years it has received strong sponsorship income through HSBC and also receives income from organizing races.

"British Cycling is a non-profit organization and all income generated is invested in the sport. Because the majority of its income is from events, including a proportion of entry fees and other payments that go towards running the sport, and because the majority of cycling events are held in the spring and summer, we are planning a significant reduction in income of around £4 million," said Harrington

"At this stage, 90 employees, or about a third of our workforce, will be furloughed, most of them in April and some in May. This is a tough decision that has been made with great caution. We are aware that some of the employees who will be furloughed will be in difficult circumstances and we are taking steps to support them, including financial advice and access to learning and development tools"

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"Furloughed employees are the ones we rely on to help our sport come back from strength to strength, and while they will not be able to work for British Cycling during this period, they will remain part of our team.

The financial difficulties brought on by the coronavirus outbreak come at a particularly troubling time for British Cycling, which is looking for new sponsors after HSBC announced in February that it would end its support early.

The financial institution has recorded a drop in profits and has decided to pull out after the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

With the Toyko Olympics postponed to 2021, British Cycling will be desperate to secure new support so that it can prepare for Tokyo at the level that has brought so much success on the track in recent Games.