PCA push for reduction in ‘outdated’ compensation payments for counties’ IPL players

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England players without central contracts have to reimburse their counties for missing games

The Professional Cricketers Association (PCA) are pushing for a change in the “outdated” system which sees English players without central contracts pay a significant proportion of their annual salary back to their counties when they miss games due to involvement in the IPL.

Players without central contracts are required to pay 1% of their annual salary back to their counties for the first 21 days that they miss due to IPL involvement and a further 0.7% for subsequent days. With most of those affected earning top-end county salaries, the system has led to payments of more than £50,000 from those playing the full IPL season to their counties.

“I think everyone would agree that the cricketing world has changed substantially since 2010 and clearly England’s stance with regards to player playing in the IPL has changed. In 2010, it was almost a preventative measure to try and discourage as many players as possible from going to the IPL; now, the ECB are encouraging English players to go and experience that tournament because of the benefits gained from playing in it.”

With players also required to reimburse their counties on a pro rata basis for their involvement in the Hundred – a process which is managed centrally – those involved in the IPL as well can end up paying significantly more than half of their annual salary back to their counties.

“It’s a significant chunk and in our view, it’s too high,” Mitchell said. “We absolutely believe that the counties need compensating and we’re not getting away from the fact that players are spending time away – there does need to be some compensation when counties are missing their players for that window. We’re just saying that it needs to be reviewed and looked at – it’s outdated and needs changing.

“The risk is that if we don’t have these conversations, and there’s not a formula endorsed by both the counties and the PCA, then it becomes a little bit like the wild west and you have players trying to negotiate this stuff out of contract, or signing white-ball contracts and going pay-as-you-play for red-ball cricket because they might be better off that way.”

“That is an unwritten agreement between the counties and it’s certainly a restriction that we wouldn’t support because there’s a risk of souring relationships between clubs and players,” Mitchell said. “I think a draconian end date probably isn’t the right way forward – it should be a sensible conversation between the player and their club.”

Any change would be made by the counties rather than the ECB, who facilitate rather than make decisions on IPL-related issues for players without central contracts. The topic was one of several discussed at the first meeting of the PCA’s new advocacy group, which comprises a dozen current and former pros from the men’s and women’s game and is intended to gather views from a wide cross-section of members and, in the long term, become “a leading voice within the game”.