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Aussie cricketers, board again at loggerheads

Ashes summer, for Australian cricket, threatens to become a winter of discord.

While the Australian Cricket Board and the Australian Cricketers' Association managed to reach an agreement to the effect that 20 per cent of all cricket revenue will go into a players' payment pool, giving players a sizeable $10.7 million to share this coming season, there seems to be no agreement in sight on the modalities of funding the players' body.

The ACB says it will give $150,000 a year for the next three years before renewing the agreement.

The players' association says no, demanding instead that 18.8 per cent of cricket revenue will go to the players and the remaining 1.2 per cent (effectively, $700,000 this year) will find its way into the association's coffers.

The players' body argues that the board will effectively be saving money, because the body will be funded out of the players' share of revenue, and not directly by the ACB. The latter, however, counters that it has promised to pay the players 20 per cent of cricket revenue, and cannot now pay a penny less.

The conflict between the board and the players, which began over a year ago, thus threatens to lengthen further. This issue alone has sparked over two dozen meetings between the board and the players' body, with no resolution in sight.

Sources indicate that both sides are intransigent, and that a speedy resolution is unlikely.

And the war has spilled, now, into paper. ACA chief executive Tim May -- that body's sole full-time employee, in fact -- released a document purportedly signed by 82 first class cricketers, affirming their support for the association.

The board for its part released its own letter, cc-ed to all players, informing them that as per the association's proposal, each Test player will stand to lose $21,000, and each first class player $3000, and this figure will escalate over the years.

Bottom line? An ominous mention in the May letter, hinting that a strike is not ruled out.

Australia's cricketers had in fact called a strike last December, then cancelled. Subsequent negotiations resolved all outstanding disputes, except this one -- how will the players' body be funded?

The next season is scheduled to begin in a little under three months.