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By Sa'adi Thawfeeq

For more than a fortnight the sports headlines were constantly focussed on the battle between the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) and the Sri Lanka World Cup cricketers represented by Graeme Labrooy of the Sri Lanka Cricketers Association (SLCA) over the payment of compensation for using players' rights during the upcoming World Cup.

For a majority of the time it was the BCCSL's version of events that was focussed to the public. Today we publish the players side of the story.

The interview with Labrooy is carried herewith without any comments.

"I took the matter of compensating players before signing the World Cup contracts with the BCCSL's CEO (Anura Tennekoon) on December 1, 2002. We had several discussions, but money was not discussed at that stage. Finally, when money came up the CEO asked what the players were expecting. I told them that they wanted 20 percent of the US$ 6.4million which the ICC was paying to the BCCSL. The BCCSL was quiet for about 3-4 weeks and finally we had a chat with four members of its members. What they came up initially was called a win bonus. But it was not so. What they did was double the match fee from the first round per game and then added 500 dollars for each round the team progressed. They said they will pay 100,000 dollars as a bonus if we won the World Cup. When you work it backwards it was only 2 percent the BCCSL was offering the players. The same day they came up with a minimum amount of 75,000 dollars plus the increased match fee. That was stage one. "Three days later they increased the amount by 25,000 dollars making it 100,000 dollars plus increased match fee. When they knew that I was going to finalise the figures with the players in Australia, they increased it by another 100,000 dollars making it 200,000 dollars plus increased match fee. That figure still worked out to only five percent. This figure was arrived at after one and a half months of talks. I invited the CEO to join me in Australia to make things easier and quicker, but it didn't happen. To break the deadlock I put forward a paper to CEO and said let's start negotiations at 12 percent or 10 percent plus increased match fee.

"The players however stuck to 20 percent. But after a couple of meetings with them I reasoned out and brought it down to 15 percent. The BCCSL said 'no' to it and said they were going upto 10 percent. What the media and the public don't know is that the BCCSL first offered 2 percent and not 10 percent. The BCCSL is coming clean saying they straight away offered 10 percent.

"During my meeting with the BCCSL, the CEO requested me not to go to the media and not to go public. On a gentleman's agreement I went by it. But when the players were not backing down from 15 percent to the 10 percent offered by the BCCSL, the BCCSL went public. It was a dirty tactic by the BCCSL to put undue pressure on the players and force them to accept their terms.

"BCCSL chief Hemaka Amarasuriya called me when I was in Australia on a Friday and told me we will give you 12 percent but if I don't get a feedback in two hours, we will be taking the players to courts on Monday morning. The players stood together at 15 percent and were ready to go to courts. Four hours later I communicated to CEO, but for three days the BCCSL was silent. During these days the BCCSL went public and said that I was misleading the players. "The BCCSL blamed the performances of the players when we spoke of these issues. What the players were asking was compensation for losing their rights. It had nothing to do with their performances. They had clearly said from day one that if they didn't have to sign the ICC players agreement they were quite willing to play in the World Cup with their usual payments as given for a normal tour, but the sponsors should not exploit them. If they do, then they must pay them 15 percent. They said their commercial rights had been stolen from them by the ICC through the BCCSL, who had signed the contract with the ICC one and half years ago without informing the players.

"Before I left Australia I managed to get the players together and told them we will accept 12 percent but with a winning bonus of 50,000 dollars on every match we win. I communicated again with CEO, but nothing happened. In the meantime the players were summoned for a meeting at the Cricket Board HQ to thrash out the matter to a conclusion.

"Some print media (not ANCL) said that it was 3-4 senior members (with names mentioned) who were responsible for the deadlock. I spoke to the whole team and we had senior players during the meeting voicing their opinions. It was very wrong to say that they were responsible for it. "I presented the players at the request of the SLCA who have asked me (along with Ashley de Silva) to handle all their dealings with the BCCSL from an year ago. It was not that the SLCA forced itself upon the players.

The SLCA is in itself the players with Sanath Jayasuriya as president, Marvan Atapattu as vice president, and Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas as members of its ExCo.

"The BCCSL did not report this problem to the ICC till January 15, a day after the deadline. The ICC spoke to me in Australia about six times and I told them it had nothing to do with their contracts but was an internal issue with the players and the BCCSL. Even during the mini-World Cup this issue came up, but the BCCSL didn't make it an issue because it would have been a shame for them".

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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