Cricket Australia has been struggling heavily with its financial status for months and COVID-19 came in the way only to increase the stress. To cope up the issue Cricket Australia decided to cut off the salary of its staff.
The cricket body has put 80 percent of its staff on 20 percent salary till end of June, while a handful of others, including the executives, remained on 80 percent pay to counter the financial stress. This decision has not gone down well with Australian Cricketers’ Association as they recently censured the top cricket body.
According to a report published in Hindustan Times, Greg Dyer, the ACA chairman said that it’s a ‘Slash and burn’ approach and will “have disastrous long-term consequences on the health of the game”.
Opportunity that is being lost by CA saddens me
While the current cost cutting, the board will save AUD 3 millions but Greg Dyer thinks it’s unnecessary and disastrous in long run since the board already had some AUD 90 million in reserves at the end of March (2020), including 36 million in stock investments.
“It saddens me, that for the game that I have loved my whole life, cricket’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is risking an opportunity lost,” Dyer said in an article posted on the ACA website.
Something really horrible with the current model
After cutting down salaries of staffs, CA is urging state associations to accept a 25 per cent pay, this makes Dyer angry in such an extent that he even said that the current model has something horribly wrong with it.
“That at the first sign of a headwind, states are being asked to take significant cuts, which are in turn filtering down to local cricket, suggests that something is horribly wrong with the current model,” said Dyer.
He also added that this time should be used to improve the game rather than affect it badly with such approaches.
“Now is not the time to diminish the game but instead… to seize the moment and improve it,”he said.
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