The Story:
Australian cricket is at a standstill, all thanks to the standoff between the stubborn Cricket Australia (CA) and a relentless Australian Cricketer’s Association (ACA). The standoff has reached its boiling point now with all cricketers standing united against CA’s ambitious attempt to dismantle the current revenue sharing model.
Close to 230 domestic cricketers are unemployed at the moment after the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) lapsed on June 30. Only a select number of players, most of them Test cricketers, currently have a valid contract due to multi-year deals.
Ian Chappell slams CA
A day after Test skipper Steve Smith reiterated his position regarding the matter, former Australia skipper, in an opinion piece for Mid-Day, has slammed the Australia cricket board for the approach.
“It appears that the two main objectives of Cricket Australia (CA) in their increasingly acrimonious dispute with the players is to reduce the amount of money being paid to first-class cricketers and to split their association.”
“If that’s not the objective then why offer more money to the elite players and at the same time try and do away with the revenue sharing clause in the MOU?”
The CA case doesn’t stand close scrutiny
CA has argued that the new revenue model, which proposes a fixed limited wage for cricketers, will help them divert fund into grass root development of the sport. However, as of now, no one is ready to buy this argument.
Ian Chappell feels flushing money to attract youngsters while ignoring the cricketers will be a poor tactic to generate interest. He states that if most of the youngsters these days are choosing different sporting careers apart from cricket and nothing can be done to avert that factor.
“If other sports are more attractive to good young athletes then why would they reduce the money available to Australia’s first-class cricketers?”
“They introduced the academy system and appointed the numerous coaches who now proliferate in the game. It was the need to provide serious cricket opportunities for young players graduating from the academy and the coaches wanting greater access to the first-class players’ time, that took the game down the path of becoming fully professional.”
First-class players overpaid?
Ian Chappell also pointed out that lucrative contracts at the domestic level will, in fact, attract people to the sport. CA has been arguing exactly the opposite of what Chappell is trying to indicate. The Cricket Board feels that current high payouts for the domestic names is not justified as they do not contribute to the incoming revenue stream.
“Surely the lure of earning a lucrative wage is one way of stemming the flow of good athletes to other sports. Decent sized rookie contracts in particular and worthwhile money for first-class cricketers, in general, is one way of making the decision for young athletes choosing a career path, more of a level playing field. Then there’s the matter of who devised the current system. It was the administrators of CA and the state associations.”
“Firstly, the issue of the amount of money paid to first-class players. CA says it wants to reduce this to overcome the shortfall in funds available to the grassroots level of the game. Their main concern is to stop the good young athletes choosing other sports, attracted by the greater odds of getting a contract and the higher remuneration available.”
“Now CA is complaining that first-class players are overpaid. There may well be cases where first-class players are overpaid — the same could be said of most businesses, CA included.”