Bat and ball / Andrew Hughes / 27 November 2008 /

Twenty20 leagues in all corners of the world and the attentions of men like Allen Stanford could bring a financial revolution to the game, says Andrew Hughes.

There was a lot of talk during the Stanford tournament about what were said to be life-changing amounts of money. $600,000 for each player in the winning team was not to be sniffed at and there was no disguising what it meant for the Stanford players to win the big prize. Even an established international such as Shivnarine Chanderpaul was in tears after the final match. For the likes of 20-year-old Andre Fletcher, who hails from a poor background and hasn't even a regular place in the Windward Islands team, that kind of money means financial security for life for him and his family.

The same, however, could not be said of every member of the England team. In fact, it was suggested in some quarters that players such as Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen would not feel the pressure so much as they were already millionaires. In the end, it appeared that the Stanford Superstars were the ones playing without pressure. But whatever the effect of the cash prize on the relative performances of the teams, the coverage of the Stanford tournament did serve to highlight a wide disparity in earnings between the top cricket players and the rest.

Thirty years ago, the disparity was far less marked. County cricketers would earn in the region of £3,000 a year whilst Test players might make £5,000. Kerry Packer and World Series Cricket changed everything. From then on, the top players were able to push for and receive bigger and better salaries. By 1982, for example, Graham Gooch was earning £28,000 plus another £15,000 in endorsements.

The real boost to the salaries of top cricketers came with the advent of central contracts. Since they were introduced in England in 2000, the gap between international players and the rest has widened dramatically. Current levels of central contracts are not disclosed, but back in 2006, they were worth £350,000 with Test and series win bonuses of £60,000 and £500,000 respectively, split amongst the squad. There is also a pooled fund of image rights and proceeds from merchandise sales, which in 2005 was worth £100,000 for each player. Central contracts in Australia and India are similarly lucrative.

Whilst the top players in these three countries have been raking it in, the rewards are much lower for their counterparts in New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In county cricket, the average pro's salary has risen from just £30,000 in 1998 to an unspectacular £40,000 today. Further down the scale, there are young county cricketers earning as little as £3,000 a year, as their counties circumvent the rules on minimum wages by recruiting their younger charges on 'youth' or 'development' contracts.

Of course, the rewards for cricketers at all levels are paltry compared to what is on offer in the winter game. For example, in 2006, the average Premier League footballer's wage was an astonishing £675,000 whilst in the Championship it was a very healthy £195,750. Even players in League Two, the lowest tier of professional football, earned on average more than most county cricketers.

It is true that television companies have pumped money into football to an extent that would simply not happen in English domestic cricket. But it is also the case that footballers were more determined than cricketers in pushing for greater rewards much earlier on. The frustrations over pay that persuaded many Test cricketers to sign up with Packer didn't come to a head until the late 1970s. Yet as early as 1961, professional footballers had threatened a national strike, forcing the removal of the wage cap. Cricket, for so long wedded to the idea of amateurism, took a while longer to deal with the issue and in some ways the wages of cricketers have been playing catch-up ever since.

But that could be about to change. The torrent of money poured into the game via the Indian Premier League means that top stars such as Pietersen or Flintoff could earn salaries comparable to the likes of Frank Lampard and Cristiano Ronaldo.

With Twenty20 leagues springing up all over the world, we could end up with a travelling circus of international players moving from one lucrative Premier League to the next. The gravy train is leaving and the scramble to be onboard has begun.

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