New clauses to safeguard player payments

Players' associations have insisted on pre-emptive measures to ensure cricketers playing in the Sri Lanka Premier League are paid on time, Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) chief executive Tim May has revealed.

The Sri Lankan Cricketers' Association and FICA were successful in pushing for the inclusion of new clauses in player contracts, drawn up specifically for the tournament. Under these clauses, players must be paid 25% of their tournament salary upon arrival in the SLPL, another 25% upon completion of their team's first match, and the remaining 50% after the team's last match.

A bank guarantee for the players' full salaries has also been included in the contracts as a safety net, and outstanding pay will be automatically drawn down seven days after any defaulted pay day. 

"If anything goes terribly amiss and the bank guarantee is not available, then the player's got every right to say, 'Sorry, you haven't kept your end of the deal; I'm not keeping mine'," May said.

According to May, the measures had been taken in light of a worsening trend of players going unpaid, or receiving only part of their pay from domestic T20 competitions, and the SLPL being a new tournament with no positive payment history to show. "We've learnt now from start-up tournaments that we need to change the contracts to protect the players better, so we've then gone down the next line of introducing greater protection for the players.

"This won't be confined to the SLPL. For other start-ups like competitions in the USA next year, and the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) where we're experiencing problems as we speak, we'll be insisting on these bank guarantees to cover the full amount of player payment."

FICA has been involved in the discussion on the outstanding player salaries from the inaugural BPL which concluded in February. In July, May said that $600,000 was still owed to overseas players alone, but the BPL has said this figure is $70,000. FICA had advised players taking part in the BPL to request at least 25% of their pay before the tournament started, though this had not been part of the contract agreements.

Several members of the Royal Challengers Bangalore 2012 side, including captain Daniel Vettori, are also yet to receive the first installment of their IPL pay. Players who took part in a separate All Star Twenty20 event in Toronto also complained about going unpaid following the match.

The SLPL will run from August 10 to August 31, with all the matches being played in two venues in Colombo and Kandy. Overseas players set to play include Chris Gayle, Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal.