Skerritt: ‘No pay cuts as yet’

President of Cricket West Indies (CWI), Ricky Skerritt, says despite the economic downturn from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, West Indies players on retainer contracts will not be asked to take a pay cut just yet.

This, according to Skerritt, doesn’t mean there will be no changes because a technical committee had been vetting retainer contracts in lieu of them coming to an end in a few months.

“There has been no move in that direction at this time. We are actually in the process right now, that is the technical team is in the process of reviewing retainer contracts [because] the retainer contracts come to an end within the next couple of months. So, it is being looked at as normal, but I expect that we will have to do a bit of a check on where we are and what we can afford to do going forward,” he said in an interview with the Good Morning JoJo Sports Show in Antigua.

Skerritt’s comments do not mean that the CWI is in great financial standing despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on sport worldwide, and in fact, the president pointed to other areas where there might be an impact in short order.

“CWI is facing a rapidly changing world environment for sports and with no sports taking place, with revenues related to broadcast rights and sponsorship and so on, gate receipts, all of those revenues are important, so every sporting organisation around the world is facing issues. Those that were already facing cash flow issues or other organizational issues will just have it tougher and CWI is one of those,” Skerritt said.

English male cricketers have collectively donated £500,000, the women have agreed pay cuts for the next three months to help the English Cricket Board deal with the fallout from a lack of play, while the NBA is proposing a 50 per cent pay cut while games are suspended.

Yesterday, former England international and Barbados opener Roland Butcher called for serious discussion between CWI and the players’ representatives, WIPA, on the financial arrangements between them, especially as it related to central contracts of the international cricketers. Butcher said there were already issues relating to financing cricket in the region and the pandemic had only made the situation worse. He said a discussion on the subject between WIPA and CWI seemed inevitable, as it could not be business as usual. He said the discussion between the two entities would more than likely center around those players with central contracts.

“At the end of the day, the sport will have to survive. So at times there will have to be certain measures to make sure that the sport survives. If everyone at this time just wants to take what they can, then the sport will not survive, they will not survive, the future players will not survive either. So it is something that everybody is going to have to bring their hands to the pump and try and deal with,” the veteran Barbados Cricket Association administrator noted. (SportsMax/WG)