County cricketers in England and Wales have agreed to take a further pay cut for June and July of up to 20 per cent, even if they return to training next month.
The players initially accepted a 17 per cent pay cut for April and May when the season was suspended until May 28, but with the season now postponed until August 1, further cuts were agreed yesterday with the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA).
The budgets for all of the 18 counties have become increasingly tight due to the lack of ticket sales and hospitality income.
With the exception of Surrey and Lancashire, all counties have placed their players on furlough. However, that does not cover the entirety of the wage bill because county cricketers earn anything between £25,000 and £160,000 a year and the job retention scheme only provides a maximum of £2,500 a month for each employee.
There are tentative plans in place for county cricket to return with a regionalised County Championship and a T20 Blast competition through August, September and the first half of October (see Cricketinvestor article 28th May).
If these proposals come to fruition and county cricket returns in August, players will need to be brought off furlough and return to training in July. They will not receive full pay, though, as counties are desperate to prevent any redundancies.
The situation is particularly precarious for the 134 players who are in the last year of their contracts, many of whom will not be offered new ones with the county transfer market having stalled. For those players who do end up leaving the professional game at the end of the season, they have been offered a different arrangement and will only have to take a 12 per cent pay cut for June and July and will be given three months’ pay as a severance package.
“With no cricket to be played in June or July, players have agreed to extend measures,” Daryl Mitchell, the PCA chairman, said.
John Stephenson
john@cricketinvestor.co.uk
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