SA’s cricket players will be spared Covid-19 pay cuts, but…

As various franchise and international teams across all sporting codes mull and even implement pay cuts due to the Covid-19 crisis, South Africa’s top cricket players might be spared such drastic measures.

Jacques Faul, Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) acting chief executive, on Tuesday confirmed that the timing of the pandemic, with the end of the domestic season near anyway, was fortuitous and played a major factor in a cash crunch being cushioned.

“It’s very much a relevant question to ask whether something like that would need to be looked at,” he said.

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“For now, we’ve already budgeted for next season’s contracts. It’s a centralised system, so your national and franchise players are all budgeted for. At the moment, we have the capacity to make these payments through to the end of next season.”

CSA’s position is indeed in stark contrast to some counterparts.

Rugby Australia earlier in the day announced a shock 75% in its workforce, while the South African Rugby Union (Saru) is frantically trying to engage with all relevant stakeholders to save a season dominated by Super Rugby’s suspension.

Numerous top European football clubs have already agreed to pay their players reduced wages and Australian and English cricket are both also in advanced talks in that regard.

Yet local professional cricketers won’t be totally immune to the economic impact of the pandemic.

“Where the players will lose out is in match fees. A player is paid a fee for every match at international level. You also miss out on winning bonuses,” said Faul.

“If tours are rescheduled though and played, they won’t miss out.”

CSA’s precarious financial position, which has necessitated a year-long plan to date to eat into a projected R654-million loss over four years, also means that future planning post the pandemic is becoming essential and the federation has already invested in various scenario planning initiatives.

“In the long-term, even if we can cover all payment expenses next season, we have to determine the full impact of Covid-19 and how much money will be available to contract players.

“We’ve got to crunch the numbers first, but there is a possibility that players could be receiving less from the player payment pool in future,” said Faul.

“In our situation, I can’t see anyone at the moment getting paid less than he’s contracted for. That’s not going to happen. But in future, the allocation going to players I could see becoming less.”

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