Grassroots getting impacted : Cricket Australia chief

Grassroots getting impacted : Cricket Australia chief
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Cricket Australia (CA) chief James Sutherland believes the revenue-share model which the body is trying to dump in its ongoing pay negotiations with players is ‘starving’ the grassroots of the game of funding.Australia faces the possibility of an embarrassing player strike or lockout if the protracted negotiation over a new five-year pay deal for country\'s international and state cricketers cannot

Sydney: Cricket Australia (CA) chief James Sutherland believes the revenue-share model which the body is trying to dump in its ongoing pay negotiations with players is ‘starving’ the grassroots of the game of funding.Australia faces the possibility of an embarrassing player strike or lockout if the protracted negotiation over a new five-year pay deal for country's international and state cricketers cannot be resolved by the end of June.

At the heart of the dispute is the arrangement whereby the players share a fixed percentage of up to 26 percent of Cricket Australia's revenue.This is what Sutherland's executive team in Cricket Australia wish to end.The players, through their union, have remained steadfastly opposed to such a change but Sutherland says it is essential if the grassroots of the game is to get the investment it needs.

"The model was created in 1997, when players were poorly paid, but now our top male players are easily the most highly paid team sportspeople in Australia," he wrote in a column in The Weekend Australian that was published on Saturday.
"The main issue in 2017 is the chronic under-funding of grassroots. This will require an investment over time of many hundreds of millions of dollars and we must start now.

With more than 80 per cent of the country's 5,584 cricket facilities currently having no provision for women and girls, meeting the needs of female players was the sort of project desperately required, he added.

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