By Neto Baptiste
President of Cricket West Indies (CWI), Ricky Skerritt, said the regional board has no intentions of asking players to take a pay cut in response to the global economic slowdown brought on by the coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, Skerritt said the body’s technical team is however, currently vetting all retainer contracts and that some changes are possible.
“There has been no move in that direction at this time. We are actually in the process right now, that is the technical team is in the process of reviewing retainer contracts [because] the retainer contracts come to an end within the next couple of months. So, it is being looked at as normal, but I expect that we will have to do a bit of a check on where we are and what we can afford to do going forward,” he said.
Earlier this week, England’s centrally contracted men’s cricketers agreed to make an “initial donation” of £500,000 (more than $1m AUD) in response to the financial crisis engulfing the game as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
Players are to forego the equivalent of 20 percent of their retainers for the next three months in order to fund the gesture.
Skerritt, who celebrated one year in office on March 24, said the current shutdown of sports on a global scale, will also negatively impact CWI’s ability to raise the necessary funds needed to drive its regular programmes.
“CWI is facing a rapidly changing world environment for sports and with no sports taking place, with revenues related to broadcast rights and sponsorship and so on, gate receipts, all of those revenues are important, so every sporting organisation around the world is facing issues. Those that were already facing cash flow issues or other organizational issues will just have it tougher and CWI is one of those,” the CWI boss said.
England women’s centrally contracted players, who earn considerably less than their male counterparts, announced they had volunteered a salary reduction for the next three months (April, May and June) in line with their coaches and support staff.
The NBA is proposing for players to take a 50 percent pay cut while games are suspended, while reports have stated the football start Lionel Messi and his Barcelona teammates have agreed to a 70 percent pay cut.