Compromise between Australian cricket's warring parties appears closer than ever as the previously divergent positions of Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers' Association shift towards long overdue middle ground.
For virtually the first time in a pay war now more than nine months old, CA has appeared to consent to a model of revenue sharing that has been adjusted to allow more of the game's financial upside to flow into areas such as grassroots cricket, while still affording a significant proportion of money above projections to all players.
CA's chief executive James Sutherland, his ACA counterpart Alistair Nicholson and their negotiating teams were believed to be meeting in Melbourne on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the board's most recent submission of MoU articles that factor in the new, hybrid model. The players had previously consented to discussions based on "modernised" revenue sharing that would commit up to A$30 million of player payment pool money to the game's lower levels.
While negotiations appeared to hit a major snag last week when CA sent the ACA an updated Article 5 of a proposed MoU that deleted all references to revenue sharing, further discussions and correspondence between Sutherland and Nicholson have proven more fruitful.
Talks between the parties now appear to be as much about the optics of the deal - CA being able to claim a break from the fixed revenue percentage model that has existed over the past two decades and the ACA being able to say it has been retained - as its detail. One industry figure noted that the emergence of issues over the wording of clauses suggested that agreement "must be close to happening".
After the ACA distributed details of its "peace plan" based on recent discussions to all contracted players over the weekend, the Australian newspaper has published an outline of CA's possible compromise.
"Under the terms of CA's ¬revised offer," the report said, "men and women players would draw their salaries and bonuses from an agreed total player payment pool equating to a percentage of forecast revenue. Above forecast revenue would be distributed according to a complex, sliding scale ¬between the players, community cricket infrastructure and other spending priorities."
The same newspaper had previously published CA's complaints about this year's adjustment ledger payment of more than A$58 million going to the male players covered under the previous MoU but not the female players who were paid directly by CA during that time. It then published a column and front-page pointer story by the CA chairman David Peever in which he denied being "anti-union" during his days at the mining company Rio Tinto. CA's head of communications, government relations and infrastructure is Mark O'Neill, a former Rio Tinto executive who has also worked in federal politics.
The ACA's proposed terms, meanwhile, were close to those reportedly offered up by CA. According to an ACA statement on Sunday: "Players conceded to accept CA's lower end revenue scenarios as the basis for the allocation to Australian Cricket Revenue (ACR) given market and contract uncertainty; Players accepting an agreed percentage of the ACR forecast. (Note this percentage is of ACR and not Total Cricket Revenue (TCR) and it is not an increase in share on the last MOU but does factor in the inclusion of all female players).
"Revenue sharing is modified so that the players allocate up to $30 million via a new Players Grassroots Investment Fund (PGIF) from their share of over forecast revenue and performance bonuses. Thus reducing the share of revenue players would otherwise earn."
While numerous areas remain up for debate, namely what the percentage due to players - previously 24.5-27% of ACR - should be and what should be excluded and included in the ACR definition, the earlier state of impasse has at least been broken down. CA had initially proposed fixed wages for all players, augmented by a capped bonus system for international male and female players, with minimal increases for domestic male players in particular.
By contrast the ACA proposed a fixed percentage of 22.5% of agreed cricket revenue for all players, a further 22.5% for grassroots investment and the remaining 55% to remain with CA for other areas of the game. A week before the previous MoU's expiry on June 30, CA revised its offer to include all players in the capped bonus system and also to raise the wages on offer to domestic male players, without specifying by how much.
One of the ACA's longtime complaints was that it had not been provided with sufficient financial records by which to judge CA's offers, which the players claimed to include payroll tax, prize money and the assumption that all players would draw match fees by playing in all possible fixtures. Another point of contention was the inclusion of overseas Big Bash League players - who typically draw the most lucrative contracts from each team's salary cap - in the "average" wage to be offered to domestic males.
About three weeks remain for an agreement to be struck between CA and the ACA to avoid numerous forms of dislocation to the game, from the cancellation of the looming Bangladesh Test tour to the floundering of various commercial deals for the summer with sponsors, broadcasters and advertisers on those broadcasts.
The dispute has already resulted in the cancellation of an Australia A tour to South Africa earlier this month, while more than 230 players have been left out of contract, and therefore unemployed, since the expiry of the previous MoU on July 1. All players have continued to train without pay over that period. Members of Australia's Test squad for Bangladesh met in Sydney on Monday and stated their support from compromise, while also reiterating their commitment to refuse going on the tour unless an agreement is reached beforehand.
Both CA and the ACA declined to comment.
Source: ESPNcricinfo