Despite the financial difficulties Cricket West Indies face, it will not benefit financially from the West Indies’ tour of New Zealand.
Chief Executive Officer of Cricket West Indies, Johnny Grave, confirmed on the Mason and Guest show on Tuesday that the arrangements of the tour were identical to that of the tour of England and that the staff remains on half salary.
“It will still be exactly the same terms as the England tour, the players who retain contracts whether international or the franchise levels, will still be at 50 percent of pay as of all members of staff, contractors and umpires and all our stakeholders are currently receiving 50 percent of pay since July 1,” Grave stated.
He added, “Players will earn full match fees as they did in England but yes, for the whole of this tour. The situation, we are continuing to review it on a monthly basis and we hope in the very near future we will be able to get back everyone back to full pay and everyone back to full funding.”
When West Indies kick started Test cricket in a post COVID-19 pandemic, the Caribbean side saved, according to England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Chief, Tom Harrison from “financial oblivion.” ECB saved around £280m.
Grave recently explained that CWI will “not directly” benefit from the tour due to the ICC Future Tours Programme. He stated, “The home side keeps all the broadcast revenues and all the stadium revenue and the opposition really just retains its value to its sponsors, they get exposure either in terms of shirt branding or content you can generate from your players from around the tour.”
However, Grave indicated that CWI will benefit from broadcasters gaining confidence that cricket can be played safely.
“What it does is it continues to build confidence in the broadcast market that cricket can be played safely and that’s extremely important to west indies cricket at the moment…we are looking to finalize all our broadcast agreements in all the major markets and therefore cricket being played safely anywhere in the world is continuing to provide content for cricket broadcasters and it is that content that we need to ensure that in the next weeks or months we can close out these deals keep these organization afloat,” he said.
“The benefits for the players is that they will earn much needed match fees from these games,” said Grave adding…“Our focus is about trying to fulfill our obligation, trying to keep the world Test championships intact, trying to keep the new one day super league and the qualification process for the next World Cup in India in 2023 intact.”
