Cricket Australia offers 15% hike to its cricketers

The longstanding battle between Cricket Australia (CA) and the Australian cricketers might finally come to an end. James Sutherland, the chief executive of CA, declared that they will offer 15% hike to the players under the governing body’s new model. Sutherland also stated that they aren’t many people n Australia who are getting something like that, a statement which might leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Problems started ever since Cricket Australia broke up the revenue sharing model, which was around for 20 years. Cricketers were of the opinion that they deserve to get a share of the revenue. Tensions soared when Australian Cricketers Association’s (ACA) plea for mediating with the CA on behalf of the players got rejected by the Board.

Earlier, ACA had rejected the new pay offer citing that the administrators will be the only winner out of the new proposal.

Sutherland was firm in his stance saying that the offer rolled out now by the Board is the best one could expect in Australia.

“In some quarters we’re being perceived as being hard or unfair on the players in this situation.But it’s important to note that we have a player payment pool in this current year of $79m, and our proposal for next year is for a player payment pool of $91m,” the Guardian quoted Sutherland as saying.

“That’s a 15% increase. There aren’t many people in Australia getting an increase like that, or have an offer like that on the table,” he added.

CA threatened players of unemployment

Earlier this month, CA had threatened the cricketers of not getting paid beyond June 30, the day their existing contracts get expired, if they don’t sign the governing body’s new proposed offer. David Warner, in a rebellious statement, said that the Australian crickets stay united against CA’s proposal and can play in the various T20 leagues around the world if CA maintained their hard stance on the pay dispute.

Revenue to be shared but only by male internationals

Under CA’s proposal, only male international cricketers will share in any surplus revenue of the board. This leaves the women and domestic cricketers with fixed salaries which will not fluctuate according to the game’s income.

ACA had pointed out that this new proposal will “disrespect the value of the domestic cricketers and female cricketers”.

The talks will further be reopened once the Australian cricketers come back home after playing in the oncoming ICC Champions Trophy.