ECB’s opening shot in player cash battle
THE ECB have fired the first shot in a pay battle with the players that will inevitably follow the £1billion-targeted media rights sale this month.
They are disbanding the mechanism whereby county team salary caps are fixed in proportion to ECB income. Instead the county funding limits will be linked to inflation.
This incendiary move will be introduced from the 2018 season and county cricketers will not be impressed that their chances of cashing in on the new TV riches have been strangled at birth.
A document seen by Sports Agenda shows that an ECB review of county finances recommended the change last October when it was discussed at an ECB executive committee meeting attended by the Professional Cricketers’ Association chief executive David Leatherdale, who represents England players in their pay negotiations.
The critical minutes of the meeting read: ‘It was recommended that payments be uncoupled from income and linked to CPI (Consumer Price Index).’ The ECB’s concern is that counties would run into debt by paying players too much of their improved funding. FORMER RFU president Jason Leonard will have done a remarkable job if the RFU council agree to governance changes needed for the sport to adhere to the Sport England code at their Twickenham meeting today. Leonard (above), England’s most capped international who has a wide appeal across the sport, has been working to persuade entrenched blazers to give up their decisionmaking primacy and accept term limits.
SIMON HUGHES, irritant editor of The Cricketer, likes to use his own publication for self-promotion. Following swiftly on from Hughes somehow being listed in the magazine’s cricket industry power list, comes the subscriber of the month column in which a 13-year-old cricket fan looks no further for his choice of favourite cricket writer than Simon Hughes . . . of course.
THE ridiculous extent to which the ICC went to cleanse The Oval of any mention of their ground-naming rights partner Kia, to protect Champions Trophy backers Nissan, included changing a WiFi password for the venue because it contained a Kia reference.