Cricket men deny women share of $58.5m

Australia’s richest cricketers are refusing to share with our best women players a record $58.5m bonus.

Australian men’s cricket captain Steve Smith.

Australia’s richest cricketers are refusing to share with our best women players a record $58.5 million bonus that will see seven-figure cheques mailed to current and former Test stars on the eve of an Ashes series now under threat from a protracted pay dispute.

The Australian Cricketers Assoc­iation’s rejection of a Cricket Australia proposal to carry forwar­d half the sum owed from 2012-2017 into the next pay deal means that women cricketers helping to grow the sport will receive­ nothing while a retired player such as Shane Watson, a member of the ACA executive, will pocket nearly $2m.

Under the formula agreed to in a recently expired memoran­dum of understanding between Cricket Australia and the players’ union, above-forecast revenue owed to the players is paid out pro-rata, according to individual contracts from the corresponding years. This means the highest-paid Test payers — such as Steve Smith, David Warner and ­Mitchell Starc — stand to receive the lion’s share. Women, including captain Meg Lanning, will miss out. Male stars who have recently retired­ such as Mich­ael Clarke, Mitchell Johnson and Watson, will receive hefty sums based on contracts they held during the past five years.

About $30m will be shared among our top 30 cricketers, with hundreds of current and former male state cricketers to divide up the rest.

The cheques are due to be mailed out in October, about a month before the first Ashes Test is scheduled to start at the Gabba.

The payments will bring to $101m the total unexpected bounty from 2012-17 being pocketed by male players, in addition to $287m in salaries and bonuses already received under a contentious revenue-sharing model.

The ACA decision to deny women the financial spoils of the past five years is at odds with its criticism of Cricket Australia for refusing to include women in a future revenue-sharing agreement.

CA is determined to scrap the revenue-sharing model that guarantees players 24.5 cents from every dollar of gross revenue generated­ by the game. Although Cricket Australia has not publicly criticised the male players, it believes­ the inflexibility of the pay model has enriched them at the expense of greater financial priorities such as local cricket and the women’s game.

The ACA insists revenue sharing, a feature of every cricket pay deal since 1997, is “fundamental’’ to reaching a new agreement. Players have made clear their intention­ to boycott this month’s Australia A tour to South Africa and an upcoming Test series against Bangladesh unless significant progress is made towards resolving­ the dispute.

A CA offer to the players on the table since March 21 would nearly triple the average salaries of international women players over the life of the agreement, from a current figure of $79,000 to $210,000 by 2021-22.

The average salary of women state players would jump from $22,000, about a tenth of what male state players earn on average, to $52,000 this financial year.

Our leading women players, currently in England competing in the ICC Women’s World Cup, are being represented in pay negotiati­ons by the ACA alongside the men. Their solidarity will be tested once they return to Australia and fall out of contract. Until a new deal is reached, they will receive no salary from cricket.

Women players were excluded from the last MOU negotiations by the union. ACA president Greg Dyer told The Australian that today’s women players did not want money from the last deal that hadn’t been promised to them. “The female players do not wish to be funded from money that CA is legally obliged to pay the male players,’’ he said. “Neither the male or female cricketers believed that this was or is fair.

“The game is in a fantastic positio­n and can afford to adequate­ly pay both groups as part of a revenue-share model.”

CA’s proposal to carry into the next MOU half of the so-called “adjustment ledger’’ – the share of the difference between forecast and actual revenue allocated to the players — was included in its formal pay offer.

The CA proposal cited a precedent set in 2012, when the players agreed to carry all of the adjustment ledger from the final year of the old deal into the next deal to put towards player payments.

The ACA response, contained in a confidential briefing note sent by chief executive Alistair Nicholson to the players two days after the pay offer was tabled, accused CA of raiding money already owed to the players. “The CA offer does something which is so in­appropriate that it must be an error,’’ Mr Nicholson wrote. “Put simply, the CA proposal if uncorrected means that the players will be funding the next pay deal out of money already earned.’’

The ACA’s refusal to consider the proposal drew an exasperated response from CA’s chief negotiator, Kevin Roberts.

In a letter to Nicholson last month he wrote: “Male players in 2012-17 benefited from the 2011-12 adjustment ledger even if they didn’t play in that year but female players in 2017-22 will not benefit from the 2012-17 adjustment ledger, even if they played throughout. How could this possibly be fair? Given the obvious anomalies that arise from the ACA’s position on this matter, CA is seeking confirmation that this remains your position.’’

The ACA confirmed yesterday its position had not changed.