Commission recommends ‘basic overhaul’ of ladies’s cricket pay construction
The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) has really helpful the ECB oversees “a fundamental overhaul” to the pay construction of ladies’s cricket in England and Wales.
As part of the 317-page report published on Tuesday, the ICEC highlighted the disparity within the quantities paid to female and male professionals as an space to deal with. Its suggestions embody equal pay at home stage by 2029 and worldwide stage by 2030, in addition to a direct equalisation of worldwide match charges for women and men.
The fee discovered that in 2021, “England Men received 13 times the amount paid to England Women”. While the report acknowledges this displays the actual fact ladies play much less Test cricket, “credible evidence” confirmed the typical wage for England Women was 20.6% the typical of their male equivalents for taking part in limited-overs cricket – though the ECB considers this determine nearer to 30%.
Further disparity was unearthed round worldwide match charges. While ladies obtain 25% or much less of the boys’s charges, solely these within the enjoying XI are paid, versus the complete squad as it’s with the boys. Given damage funds are calculated as a portion of match charges, that inequality turns into compounded.
Differences in bonuses had been additionally stark, with the report discovering England Women’s mounted bonus pot equates to round 8% of the boys’s, whose win bonuses are structured by means of a matrix contemplating every match win after which its contribution to a collection win. Another space for enchancment is making certain ladies obtain the identical advantages as males at worldwide matches. These embody abroad tour premiums, hospitality provisions corresponding to tickets, hospitality containers for household at weekends, and transport for households to and from matches.
The fee felt England Women’s common salaries, industrial pay, charges, bonuses and captain’s allowances needs to be equal to England Men’s in white-ball by 2028. They additionally suggested the ECB to top-up prize cash for the ladies’s ODI and T20I World Cups to reflect the boys till the ICC fixes that hole.
“There should be overall equal pay at international level by 2030,” the report stated. “By this, we mean average pay, because we recognise that there will be different levels of pay within the teams, with the top players (men or women) being paid the most.”
The suggestions round home cricket embody salaries and bonuses within the ladies’s Hundred to be equal by 2025 and absolutely skilled ladies’s regional groups by 2025. This consists of rookie contracts launched by the beginning of the 2024 season and a minimal wage equal to these in impact for first-class county gamers (circa £27,500).
“The women’s game remains the poor relation of its male counterpart in English and Welsh cricket,” the fee stated. “Whilst we found good evidence of significant year-on-year improvement, we also found undeniable evidence of inequitable investment and unequal treatment for which we found no reasonable justification. Significant pay disparities persist.
“We think about it a matter of each equity and justice that that is remedied at velocity. Women have the fitting to equal pay for equal work and shouldn’t be penalised for having fewer alternatives to play than their male counterparts. Importantly, if the dedication to make cricket in England and Wales equitable is critical, it requires the sport to acknowledge and handle the historic underinvestment and lack of truthful (or certainly any) remuneration that ladies have confronted for many years.”