Cricket Australia block mediation request

Cricket365
May 17, 2017

The Chairman of Cricket Australia David Peever has rejected the request of the Australian Cricketer’s Association for mediation in their ongoing contract dispute.

CA have held a firm on their line that negotiations need to resume with their formal offer as the genesis for further talks.

The sticking point throughout the negotiations has been the players refusal to give up the revenue sharing model which would see them earn a percentage of the money generated by CA through their various endeavours.

ESPN Cricinfo have reportedly gained access to an email sent by Peever to ACA president Greg Dyer which read: “The preconditions you set out in your letter are unacceptable to CA.

“They may be genuine issues of contention from the ACA’s perspective, however they should not be an insurmountable barrier to even commencing good faith negotiations.”

Late last week CA CEO James Sutherland bluntly threatened players they would not be paid if they failed to agree a deal before their contracts expire on June 30.

Peever continued: “As James Sutherland indicated in his letter to your CEO last week, the approach the ACA has taken in demanding certain preconditions be met before it is prepared to begin negotiations is the fundamental reason why no progress has been made to date.

“Surely a more constructive and conventional approach would have been to work through CA’s MOU proposal to agree all possible items, leaving issues where the parties may be further apart to be resolved towards the end. Such an approach generally leads to a greater understanding between parties and reduces potential conflict.”

ACA president Dyer responded telling ESPN Cricinfo: “How does CA expect to get a deal done by June 30?

“To make inaccurate statements about negotiations not having begun is poor form and clearly not consistent with good-faith discussions.

“To be clear, I personally met with CA back on November 11 to commence negotiations, at which time we were commended for the position that had been presented on behalf of the players. Since then, the ACA management has had over 20 hours of face-to-face meetings with CA.

“The players have categorically rejected CA’s offer given that it did not include the revenue sharing model, but its offer is all that CA wants to talk about. The current successful revenue sharing model has been presented by the ACA with a number of solutions regarding increases in grassroots cricket, flexibility in investment and sharing of risk; yet CA appears unwilling to talk about our approach.

“The ACA clearly wants to resolve a new MOU before June 30, and given the differences in both parties, mediation seems the right step.”