IN the middle of a global lockdown, international and domestic West Indies players are facing another challenge with Cricket West Indies (CWI) not paying their match fees since January this year that would under normal circumstances have been due for payment at the end of February 2020.

The main reason for the delay in payments has been understood to be a severe cash crunch CWI has been facing which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Johnny Grave, the Chief Executive Officer for Cricket West Indies, made an appearance on NCN’s Sports on Tuesday, and offered an explanation, but not a resolution, to their ‘financial crunch’.

Grave noted that while COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the game in the Caribbean, causing delays in match fees and with a number of players having their life-changing amounts of money from their IPL contracts now at risk,.

“We’re talking to regional banks to extend our line of credit, obviously we’re talking to sponsors about whether they can make part payments, if not full payments and we’re also proactively talking to our players, staff and match officials; a number of retained umpires and we’ve assured everyone that we’ll let them know as soon as we’re in a position to make payments and give them as much warning as we possibly can.”

Grave said more than 80% of the CWI’s income comes from the International Cricket Council and Television rights, with the “vast majority of that money coming from the Indian market and the UK and then 20% comes from sponsorship and the Caribbean Premier League.”

“Unfortunately, we’re in this position where our seven-year broadcast deal that we’ve had Sony Ten Sports, which is out of India, has come to an end; we’re in the midst of all the media negotiations which has been going on for about six months now.

 We’ve completed deals in South Africa and New Zealand, which are the two teams which were due to tour in July and August this year…now unfortunately, COVID-19 has put a pause on those negotiations, so at the moment, the situation is uncertain until we can give certainty to those broadcasters that cricket is going to be back, it’s almost impossible for us to close those deals,” Grave explained.

The Cricket West Indies CEO further lamented that while he’s confident in the product of West Indies cricket, the issues at hand, which is COVID-19, forces the game’s regional body in uncomfortable position, since they will have to “first sign those deals and right now, most rights holders and most broadcasters are saying that until the governing body (the ICC) can give them certainty as to when the sport will return, and give them live content, most of the significant payments are being withheld.”

The international men players have not been paid their match fee for the home series against Ireland in January and the Sri Lanka tour in February-March.

The international women are owed the match fees for the four matches they played in the T20 World Cup, played in February-March in Australia.

However, the biggest losers are the domestic players, most of whom have not been paid a large percentage of their match fees for the 2020 West Indies Championship, the regional four-day competition.

In March, CWI discontinued the competition after eight of the 10 rounds, declaring Barbados the winners of the Headley-Weekes Trophy.

The regional players are contracted under two categories: one comprises a set of 90 players that are on monthly retainers with the six franchises.

The six teams include Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Leeward Islands and Windward Islands. These contracted players are split across four categories: A, B, C and Development. Players in Category A get a monthly remuneration of US $2,666, those in Category B get $2,000, those in Category C earn $1500 and those in Development get $1,000.

The second contracted category is the play-for-pay, where players are paid on per-match basis. All regional players, across both categories, are paid $1600 per match which is separate from all the allowances including per Diem.

According to an article published on ESPN’s website, Wayne Lewis, the secretary of the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA), said that the contracted regional players have been paid their allowances salaries, but match fees for all the eight rounds of the domestic four-day competition are still outstanding.

Those in play-for-pay category, though, have been paid the match fee for the first three rounds only.

The West Indies women, Lewis said, have received the prize money from the T20 World Cup, but not their match fees, which has also not been paid to the men’s white-ball squads.