We hold our heads high that we didn’t put players in the middle of pay dispute: CA Chairman David Peever

CA Chairman David Peever has stated that the outcome of the pay dispute was favourable. (Source: PTI)

After a bitter pay dispute which took place between Cricket Australia and the ACA Australian Cricketers’ Association, earlier this year, CA Chairman David Peever has stated that the outcome was favourable in nature.

“We didn’t want to put players in the middle of the dispute and we hold our heads high that we didn’t ever do that. Yes it was acrimonious, this is a significant change that comes about every five years so it is not surprising that there would be tension around it. Apart from the Australia A-South Africa tour, no cricket was lost and no player has gone without payment.”, he said

“While a lot has been made of the opposing views, at the end of the day compromise is necessary to get to an outcome and that is what happened,” he added.

While CA Chief Executive, James Sutherland faced a lot of flak for his role in the dispute, he did find support from Peever who said that he was competent enough.

“You have to bear in mind James runs a very large organisation; a large, complex organisation, and he’s time-poor,” he said. “It was important that at some stage we felt James needed to move into the process directly, but not at the beginning. We had an extremely competent person in Kevin Roberts leading from our side.”, said Peever.

However, Sutherland went on to say, “We believe there is significant interest in cricket’s rights. Ultimately, the market will decide the value of our rights but we do know the media landscape is changing all the time. We have great content, we have high levels of fan passion and fan interest in our sport and we are very confident we are in a good position to get a great result for Australian cricket,” he added.