Stalemate over pay deal

Player contracts, Bangladesh Tests, tours under big cloud

CONTINGENCY plans have been discussed among Australian players and their association as their pay dispute with Cricket Australia moved further away from a resolution.

The Australian Cricketers Association’s outright rejection of the CA pay proposal yesterday put hope of a new deal being done by the June 30 deadline at long odds, which would leave male and female players out of contract.

That could put tours includ- ing an Australia A trip to South Africa, the Test tour to Bangladesh in August, if it goes ahead, and Ashes preparations in the firing line for player action, if no deal is done.

CA boss James Sutherland reacted with disappointment, claiming the ACA had taken too long to respond, was peddling incorrect claims and dismissed any suggestion the governing body was hiding money.

The ACA rejection, and counter-proposal, suggested CA’s initial offer in March removed at least $128 million from the player payment pool and offered a “negligible or non-existent” pay rise.

ACA boss Alastair Nicholson said the players remained unmoved in their desire to continue the revenue sharing model and had no clear understanding from CA as to why it no longer worked.

He said the numbers involved were always negotiable, with player payments set to exceed $500 million over the next five years.

Nicholson said the philos- ophy of revenue sharing was important to the players and could prove a hard hurdle to jump when talks resume.

“From our point of view it is clear we represent what the players want, and the players want the model, which is already there,” he said.

“We have done our contingency planning in preparation for that [no deal being done] ... it’s something we have discussed with players if we do get closer to that date and we will continue to put things in place.”