Game's 'low pay' fuels corruption

David Bond, Deputy Political Editor @djbond6873

13 April 2012

Lord Condon's long-awaited report on corruption in cricket has highlighted the culture of greed and dishonesty threatening the international game. One of the reasons for that culture developing, Condon says, is the fact that cricketers are a long way behind other top sportsmen in the pay league.

True enough. The only cricketer to get anywhere near the world's sporting rich list is Indian skipper Sachin Tendulkar who this week signed a five-year marketing deal worth £12 million.

And while England's football captain David Beckham earns an estimated £5.2m a year, cricket captain Nasser Hussain, gets about £250,000 annually.

In his interim report, published yesterday, former Metropolitan Police commissioner Condon wrote: "International cricketers are paid less than top soccer players, golfers, tennis players or Formula One drivers and are therefore more vulnerable to corrupt approaches.

"During the last World Cup and other major events the cricketers received a low single-figure percentage of the proceeds from the event and resent the distribution of profits elsewhere.

"Cricketers have relatively short and uncertain playing careers, often without contracts and some seek to supplement their official earnings with money from corrupt practices."

But in future the temptation to break the rules may disappear as cricket takes advantage of the riches on offer from marketing and television companies.

Earlier this week the England and Wales Cricket Board signed a three-year TV deal with Channel 4 and Sky worth £150m. That deal will filter down into the pay packets of the centrally contracted England players who receive an average of around £100,000 a year. That could be boosted by the sale of internet rights worth £100m over the next 10 years.

Leading football agent John Smith says top players' earnings have already come a long way since he negotiated the England Test side's first players' pool in 1993.

But even then while England's footballers were sharing a pot of £1m, the cricketers had to be content with a quarter of that sum. Smith explained: "Cricket players will never make big, big money. Although TV rights are going up in value they will never be worth what football is worth.

"Football's Premier League is worth nearly £2billion while the whole of English cricket is only worth £150m.

"Attendances at cricket are way behind football and while there are lots of kit manufacturers competing to be associated with the best footballers, there are only about four companies in cricket."

Most professional players earn well over the minimum wage.

And with tax-free benefit years and sponsored cars, pleading poverty will soon start to have a hollow ring if, as Condon's report suggests, cricketers continue to give in to temptation.

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