England cricketers enraged with ECB's decision about sharing bonus of £2.1 million earned from the Hundred league
England cricketers are reportedly unhappy about the ECB's decision on sharing a bonus of £2.1 million just among the top officials of the board. The officials earned this hefty profit from the inaugural Hundred tournament due to its huge success.
The English cricketers had agreed last year to take a 15% pay cut for one year as COVID-19 bough financial hindrances to the ECB.
But now that the board has made a good profit this year, they are sharing it among themselves without giving any of it to the cricketers. It has upset the players, and they are reportedly unimpressed by the board's decision.
The Hundred was part of the ECB's long-term incentive plan (LTIP) devised in 2017. The county executive, who was part of the meetings in 2017 revealed a few things to Sportsmail on the matter. He said:
"There was always this pot when the LTIP was first introduced three years ago, and everybody knew it was solely to do with the Hundred. It was to the extent where it was causing quite a lot of issues within the ECB about who was included in the LTIP and who wasn't."
He continued:
"We wanted them to be more even-handed in the way they promoted all formats of the game, and their sole focus was on the Hundred, in terms of getting it the best slot in the summer, all the marketing budget — they parked everything into it.
"The issue in the wider county game is that people were promised big bonuses to put the Hundred first at the expense of everything else. As a result of that, you get one-eyed decision-making."
ECB had fired 62 people in 2020
Not only did the players take a pay-cut, but the ECB also fired 62 people while dealing with the COVID-19 situation last year.
ECB chairman Ian Watmore tried to defend the ECB's decision by stating that officials also took pay cuts voluntarily in 2020 owing to the financial troubles. He said:
"The board's leading executives were 'among the first to commit to significant and voluntary pay and incentive cuts in 2020."