Following on from the announcement of the NZ "central contracts", it has emerged that at least two of the NZ team were offered these contracts but turned them down.
People have been quick to ask why; but I think the answer is pretty obvious: it's a tough gig, for not-a-lot of money.
I don't have any details on the Ts&Cs offered to the NZ girls, but I do know a little bit about the English equivalent: Chance To Shine.
Chance To Shine is the charity(1) which employs several of the leading England players, including captain Lottie Edwards. Their role requires them to deliver coaching sessions at schools and clubs all around the country; and in return they get the flexibility to train as semi-professional sportsmen.
So there's the first rub, right there: the role involves constant travel, living out of hotels, away from friends, family and loved-ones.
Of course, England's men do this all the time; but here's the difference: the men are earning in the order of hundreds of thousands of pounds per year.
I don't know exactly what Lottie & Co. earn; but the Cricket Foundation's accounts are a matter of public record. The charity employs 22 people, only two of whom earn in excess of the reporting threshold of £60k (probably the Chief Exec and the Ops Director); and a back-of-the-envelope calculation(2) suggests an average salary for everyone else of around £36k - not peanuts, by any means; and it offers the girls a chance to "live and breathe" cricket in a way which they couldn't if they had a "proper" job.
But a king's ransom, it ain't; and you can see why some would say 'thanks, but no thanks'.
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(1) Actually... technically... the charity is called The Cricket Foundation, and it runs a program called Chance To Shine.
(2) Pre-NI salaries of about £800k, divided by 20 remaining employees
I have every respect for the representatives of C2S this is an all year round commitment to plant the seeds of cricket into young minds. But they have to move on, leave it to others to nurture and develop the future cricketers. They can only hope that one day a teenager come up to them and reminds them how they inspired them and started them on the road to success.
ReplyDeleteI feel for them that they're now seen as the fair play ambassadors as well, only so much time so much to do!