JOHANNESBURG – Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the SA Cricketers’ Association (Saca) have settled on an agreement for compensation over the loss of earnings in the postponed Global League T20.
CSA issued a statement on Tuesday confirming that an agreement had been reached and players would be paid out in three instalments between this month and April 2018.
Independent Media understands that the players will receive 60 percent of their draft fees and that the final figure was well received by the majority of players who were initially disgruntled by the postponement.
Young Akhona Mnyaka, for example, who was picked up by the Bloem City Blazers for R130,000 ($10,000), will receive R78,000, which will be played to him in three instalments.
Those who were picked in the opening round of the draft, such as Durban Qalanders all-rounder Chris Morris, were set to receive salaries of R1.755-million. They will receive R1.05-million.
The international players who were drafted will receive 50 percent of the fees for which they were purchased, but their payments will be further calculated according to the number of matches they were contracted to play.
A number of the big international names were due to leave the GLT20 to head for other tournaments, most notably the Big Bash.
In total over R93 million was spent drafting players.
“The settlement will help bridge the gap between player expectation and the disappointment of having to postpone the league,” said acting CSA CEO Thabang Moroe in the statement.
Said Saca CEO Tony Irish: “This was an issue affecting 138 SA and foreign players, and we are very happy we’ve been able to resolve it for all of them.”
That show of faith should see that strong interest remains in the competition from domestic players for next year, when it is anticipated that CSA will ensure that the tournament finally kicks off.
Whether or not international players will all return next year remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the body representing coaches, the recently established SA Professional Sports Coaches Association, said it was still in talks about compensation for its members.
The association represents coaches from various sports. Its cricket arm acts on behalf of all the local franchise coaches, and recently agreed to represent foreign coaches who were due to work in the GLT20, including former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, who was set to be the mentor at the Stellenbosch franchise.
“There is no agreement for us at this stage,” said Dave Nosworthy, the association’s chairman.
“It’s still early days for us. We are not as far down the road as Saca. They already have a Memorandum of Understanding with CSA. Being new, we haven’t got that in place yet, there are no guidelines for us, this compensation outcome negotiated by Saca for the players came a bit early for us.”
Nevertheless, Nosworthy says the coaches’ association are hopeful that the same basis as utilised for Saca will be used for the coaches.
“It’s only fair that, like the players, the coaches are looked after too. For too long it’s an area that’s been ignored in SA sport.”
Nosworthy explained that at this stage, no deadline had been set for any agreement with CSA.
“We are not going down that route because if you start setting deadlines, it becomes confrontational. Hopefully CSA engage with us like they did with the players. We just want the right thing to be done.”
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