Former Australian pacer Jason Gillespie has praised the Federation of International Cricketers Associations (FICA) for its role in helping the players to recover a proportion of the payments, which were owed to them for their participation in the Indian Cricket League in 2009.
“It was obviously a really long winded process to recover money owed to players taking a legal route,” Gillespie said on Thursday (June 23). “We are grateful for FICA’s support on this, and it demonstrates the benefit of players banding together under a global body that exists to benefit players around the world.”
A legal issue was started in India with the assistance of FICA following the payment dispute and it took five long years to get resolved.
“We believe the complexity and length of this legal case, which was a basic breach of contract issue, highlights the need for a collective solution and contract enforcement mechanism in cricket, such as a global grievance arbitration body,” FICA Executive Chairman Tony Irish said following the outcome.
“We have seen this work effectively in other sports. The global cricket structure should be underpinned by mutual respect of contract by players and administrators/event organisers alike. It is also important that we continue to shine a light on situations in which player contracts are not honoured. Basic protections should be afforded to players, and the whole game can benefit by having an efficient global system that works.”
The ICL was a private T20 league funded by Zee Enterprises Limited that operated between 2007 and 2009.
The Indian Cricket League (ICL) was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises started in 2007 in India. Its two seasons included tournaments between four international teams (World XI, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and nine domestic teams notionally located in major Indian cities as well as the champions Lahore Badshahs who were based in Lahore, Pakistan and Dhaka Warriors based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. However, it was folded in 2009 as it lacked the support of the BCCI and ICC.