Cricket Australia boss Kevin Roberts defends handling of cash crisis

Kevin Roberts says he has the support of his board and players after a cash crisis forced him to stand down 200 staff and push to slash payments to states.

Cricket Australia chief executive officer Kevin Roberts. Picture: Getty Images

Cricket Australia chief executive Kevin Roberts has defended standing down 200 staff, pushing to slash payments to states and his performance as the stunned game processes the announcement of a cash crisis.

Roberts claimed to have the support of board, states and senior players on Tuesday, but said the financial situation was serious and would be worse if cricket is not played this summer.

The chief executive said the game had lost $20m from a succession of blows, including the cancellation of the New Zealand series and debtors who have defaulted on payments.

He said that while states had initially been asked to take a 45 per cent cut over the next financial year, head office was now working on a model that started at 25 per cent.

The cricket boss claimed there had been “challenging conversations” but sidestepped questions about whether he had lost the support or trust of key stakeholders in the game.

“I don’t think it was an over-reaction and we are paying people the greater of 20 per cent of their salary or, if the JobKeeper allowance is more than 20 per cent of their salary, then we’re paying them that,” Roberts said.

He defended approaching senior players directly and indicated they were prepared to take pain for the good of the game but was clear that the pay share model was sacred.

“We’ve got an obligation to communicate with our people in all circumstances. The relationship between Cricket Australia and our centrally contracted players is the strongest that it has been for many years.

“It is incumbent on me as the leader of Cricket Australia to share with the leaders of our national cricket teams, our captains and vice captains, anything that is significant and communicate with them openly.

“Just as I have shared with you an impact of $20m on Cricket Australia and anticipate the likelihood of a much greater impact going forward, it was only right to share that information with the players — including a reduction, somewhat, in the value of our investments, also the fact some of our debtors haven’t paid, the fact we couldn’t stage the entire ODI series against New Zealand and the fact we have to support the cash flow for the T20 World Cup event through the winter.

“They responded with a sense of responsibility and compassion for the cricket community that we’ve all come to expect based on the high-quality people they are with a message that it is only fair that this situation is shared across the cricket family.

Senior players such as Test cricket captain Tim Paine are prepared to take a financial hit for the good of the game, Kevin Roberts claimed. Picture: AAP

“We are working with the Australian Cricketers Association and communicating with the players and all parties have rightly acknowledged that we work through that privately. We respect the player payment model that is in place now and we intend to continue respecting that.

“Everyone acknowledges that in the interim we all need some creative solutions whatever that means, it doesn’t mean disrespecting the current model at all, it means we need creative solutions like every other organisation in society to manage through this situation.”

Staff were told all but essential workers would be stood down until the end of the financial year.

“It wasn’t an over-reaction because we’re dealing with a situation that’s hitting us, unfortunately, at the low point of our cash cycle over four years.

“We reach a point in early September where if there’s more shocks as we’ve had over the last month or more, where our reserves are very thin and in fact effectively we’d chart a path to zero if we didn’t take drastic action.

“Then you layer on top of that the possibility that the international season doesn’t go ahead, and that’s an issue of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Albeit the timing is a little bit different in our season relative to the football codes. We’ve seen across the two major football codes, they’ve done four things. One is to secure debt

facilities, one is reduce their own costs as leagues, the next is to reduce their funding of clubs and the next is to negotiate a sensible resetting of player payments for the season.

Roberts was asked if he had lost trust of states, players and staff who were blindsided and confused by what looked like a dramatic change after the sport had indicated it was in a good position last month. Cricket Australia received almost $100m from broadcasters in March.

“What we need to do is maintain that trust. And this is an unprecedented and very challenging situation for society as a whole, isn’t it?” the chief executive said.

Roberts said he was confident the board backed him.

“We’re together working through challenging times that no one has faced in society before. Let alone in cricket,” he said, adding: “And we’re all committed to playing our respective leadership roles whether that be our directors who are going above and beyond the call in helping us steer a way through this. Or whether it’s the executive team. I’m asking more of them than I’ve ever asked of them before in this situation. Or the role that I’ll play. Being committed to if it’s needed, working 14, 15, 16 hours a day seven days a week, to chart a path through this. That’s what I’ll be doing. That’s what we’ll be doing.”