THE WORLD’S richest cricket board hasn’t paid some of the world’s richest cricketers their dues for close to 10 months now.
The BCCI’s 27 elite contracted players are yet to receive the first of the quarterly installments due since October last year. The board has also not disbursed match fees for the two Tests, nine ODIs and eight T20 games that the national team has played since December 2019.
The total retainer amount due for contracted cricketers annually is Rs 99 crore, with the payment divided on grading. While Grade A+ cricketers Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah get Rs 7 crore annually, the other regulars in grades A, B and C get Rs 5 crore, Rs 3 crore and Rs 1 crore, respectively. The match fees for each Test, ODI and T20 are Rs 15 lakh, Rs 6 lakh and Rs 3 lakh, respectively.
According to the last balance sheet made public by the BCCI, it had cash and bank balance of Rs 5,526 crore, as of March 2018, including Rs 2,992 crore in fixed deposits. In April 2018, the BCCI signed a five-year broadcasting deal with Star TV worth Rs 6,138.1 crore.
The board has not had a Chief Financial officer since December, and a Chief Executive Officer and General Manager (Cricket Operations) since last month.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah, too, have exhausted their tenure, as per the board’s Constitution. The board has approached the Supreme Court for annulling the “cooling off” clause in the Constitution so that both can retain their positions.
The payment for first-class and age-group cricketers, too, has been delayed. Several domestic players from Jharkhand, Mumbai, Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, Pondicherry, Baroda, Railways, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh told The Indian Express that the “full settlement” for the last season hasn’t been done.
According to the BCCI website, all the state units have been credited Rs 10 crore each as part payment of the annual subsidy for cricket activities.
