Players’ Unity Against CA’s Proposal Pay Delights: Ian Chappell

Jan 13, 2019 at 4:14 PM

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Players’ Unity Against CA’s Proposal Pay Delights: Ian Chappell

Ian Chappell, the Australia cricket legend, says he is ‘delighted’ that the Australian players are united against Cricket Australia’s (CA) proposed an overhaul of the current remuneration model.

The governing body late last week threatened not to pay contracted players beyond June 30 unless the proposed remuneration overhaul was accepted. CA chief executive James Sutherland demanded the players accept the offer in a blunt email, as the impasse with the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) looked no closer to resolution.

The latest flare-up casts doubt on what team Australia could field after June 30, with a two-Test series scheduled in August in Bangladesh ahead of a home Ashes showdown with England later in the year.

The ongoing stand-off between the Australian Cricketers Association and CA shows little, if no sign of abating, at a time when fast bowler Josh Hazlewood says players will remain focused on winning the Champions Trophy in England. Australia will begin their warm-up matches this week, with Nicholson jetting in to provide an update on a new memorandum of understanding which looks unlikely to be brokered by the June 30 deadline.

At that point, the players are likely to be in the rare position of being locked out by CA, or “unemployed” as the ACA said on Tuesday. CA could offer the Australia A players set to head to South Africa on July 8 a tour contract, but that would defeat the purpose of a lock-out, even though there are first-class cricketers on multi-year deals.

But the unity among the Aussie players has been a delight for the 73-year-old, who was a leading figure in Australian cricket’s most momentous pay fight, which came 40 years ago and spawned the breakaway World Series Cricket.

“I’m delighted the players are sticking together and staying strong on it,” Chappell told AAP. “From afar it looks as though the board are trying to splinter the players, which I find a rather strange tactic. Maybe the board thought ‘you know what the players are like’.
 
“They were working on the theory of greed, that you keep the top blokes happy with money and they won’t care about the rest,” he added. “It looks like they’ve picked the wrong target.”Chappell said the threat of players becoming Twenty20 freelancers was very real in this changing cricket landscape.

“They could easily head off and do a Chris Gayle and be pretty well off,” he said. “The board couldn’t stop them playing in any Twenty20 league because they’re not under contract.”

Players union chief Alistair Nicholson will meet with Australia’s top players in England this weekend, acknowledging their unity at a time when they could easily accept Cricket Australia’s pay offer.

“Times have changed. The commercial reality of the international cricket world is that our cricketers are in high demand for more money all over the world. CA forcing them into unemployment is an open invitation to the international cricket world. It’s a dangerous mistake and one that is completely unnecessary. And it compounds the existing error of dismantling revenue sharing which is the best defence against international forces. Australian cricketers, men and women both, want to play in Australia, for Australia and for their states and T20 teams. When you threaten them with unemployment, you place them squarely in the sights of the new cricket world.”

A CA spokesman said on Tuesday that the governing body was ready to negotiate.

“CA remains ready and willing to negotiate anytime and, unfortunately, it’s the ACA that is putting pre-conditions on any negotiation or mediation,” he said.

Nicholson said the players remained united in their bid for a fair deal.

“The top players are going into bat for the domestic players, female players and grassroots cricket. That’s what this dispute is largely about,” he said.”And what they are asking for is simply to keep what they already have. The players are asking for 22.5 percent of revenue for them and 22.5 percent for grass roots, leaving CA with 55 percent of revenue.If they were being greedy they would have taken the deals CA were offering them to walk away from their colleagues.”

“No contracts means unemployment, which means no players. That is the reality. Strike action is actually not part of any equation.”

The ACA is also bewildered over why CA, guided by steadfast chairman David Peever, has rejected its call for mediation, a move which would at least get the two warring parties talking.

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