A deal has been accomplished to end the protracted pay-dispute of the Australian players making way for the national team players to be re-contracted and to go on with the scheduled Bangladesh tour later this month.
In a face to face meeting this morning at Melbourne, Cricket Australia Chief Executive James Sutherland and his counterpart from Australian Cricket Association after a final round of dialogue decided to sign the in-principle agreement. The new five-year Memorandum of Understanding and details of the deal that supports the agreement is to be revealed later this afternoon through a formal press conference in Melbourne.
As per the previous MOU’s, an agreed portion of the CA’s gross cricket related revenue was given to the players but the governing body wanted to revise the new agreement in order to allow greater flexibility for much-needed investment in the grassroots programs. However, the players union asserted that the previous model to be retained as the proposed change would reduce the status of the players from partners in the game to paid employees.
ACA at a meeting last month decided that none of the nation’s professional cricketers would participate in matches organized by the Cricket Australia until the new MOU is signed.
The Australian Cricket Association’s Chief Executive Alistair Nicholson after the meeting said, “One agreement for all male and female players up to 30% revenue to be shared from expected revenue ($500 million) for five years,”
“A players vote to be conducted in the next 24 hours as per the past precedent, we are expecting positive outcomes,” he went on to add.
The Chief said that all the uncontracted players will receive back pay within the next four to six weeks.
Australian men’s Test Team is scheduled to begin training in Darwin next week and the team will fly to Dhaka to play a two match test series against Bangladesh beginning on August 18.