Members of the Indian cricket team have not yet been paid their match fees and the Rs 1-crore incentive they were each promised for their exceedingly successful six-month home season in 2016-’17, The Indian Express reported on Friday, quoting unnamed officials.
The delay in payment has been attributed to two reasons – the standoff between the Supreme Court’s recently appointed Committee of Administrators, which now handles the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s functioning, and the board’s office-bearers, and the BCCI’s tiff over revenue with the International Cricket Council.
Before the Indian Premier League began in April, India played and won 13 Tests against England, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia and in 2016-’17 season. The BCCI pays each fielded player Rs 15 lakh and each benched member of the squad Rs 7 lakh.
“The payment is delayed because of various issues. The BCCI did not have an official signatory in February [to cheques] and later, there was confusion over whether [Acting Secretary] Amitabh Choudhary can clear these payments because only the secretary can give all approvals,” a top official of the cricketing body told the Express.
Members of the women’s national team – who get relatively less, at Rs 1 lakh each per series – have not been paid either. The BCCI official said this was because “their agreement with the BCCI has yet to be signed”. “Once it is officially done, their payment will be released,” the official added.
A regular member of the Indian Test side led by Virat Kohli said “such delays have never happened earlier”. “Usually, we get our dues within a month or 15 days of a Test match but this time, the delay has been long,” the cricketer added.
While the payments were made within two months of a series through cheques earlier, the Committee of Administrators, implementing the Lodha panel’s recommendations to the BCCI’s functioning, brought in a new system of payments through wire transfers. The board’s dispute with the ICC stems from the international body’s new financial model, as per which the BCCI will now receive $293 million (Rs 1,949 crore) – a major pay cut from the $570 million it earlier drew for being one of the three nations with the highest revenue generation from the sport.
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