Deal Bankrupts Player Projects

The Sunday Age

Sunday July 22, 2007

Daniel Lane

CRICKET Australia's reworked sponsorship deal with the Commonwealth Bank has placed the nation's top players on battle alert.

This follows the bank's inclusion of a series of new demands in the deal that will affect some players' personal sponsorships and advertising endorsements.

The bank has added 20 categories to areas they wanted Cricket Australia to protect.

Under the bank's status as a "protected sponsor", the players won't be able to promote such things as home and car loans, internet banking, credit cards and insurance for rival financial organisations.

The players are said to be challenging the changes on the grounds of intellectual property and restriction of trade.

The Sunday Age understands the players, through their players' association, are compiling a letter arguing against the restrictions.

Matthew Hayden's relationship with Macquarie Bank has been listed as an example. Hayden hosts coaching clinics arranged by the bank but cannot appear in any advertising material because that would contravene Cricket Australia's deal with the Commonwealth Bank.

Cricketers aren't the only athletes bound by such restrictions. AFL, rugby, the NRL and the Australian Olympic Committee are among organisations that protect their sponsors in a similar manner, but the cricketers are understood to be frustrated at losing lucrative opportunities because sponsors are keen to cash in on their profiles.

Their argument centres on their rights as individuals. It is certain to be a long, drawn-out and complicated issue, as intellectual property is a notorious grey area.

A player manager told The Sunday Age the problem was festering.

"There are two sides to this story," he said.

"Cricket Australia has an obligation to its sponsors and it has to protect its client's brand, and its relationship with the sport.

"And the sponsors pay for that protection. However, the players are arguing they should have some say over their intellectual property and images. They can't understand why, as individuals, they can't promote rival products."

Cricket Australia's position is that the players sign a contract agreeing to abide by rules that include their duties in dealing with sponsors.

The issue has emerged as Texan billionaire Allen Stanford has announced his intention to host a $23 million Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies next year.

Australia and other Test-playing nations are monitoring the situation closely. There were suggestions during the World Cup that Stanford could form a private competition, based loosely on Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket blueprint. Stanford is certain to target Australians to compete in the tournament.

The magnitude of the contest is in the zeroes at the end of the cheque. Australia pocketed $1 million for winning the World Cup this year, and he is offering 23 times that to play what is essentially a game of hit and giggle.

Stanford has already discussed the idea of pitting the Aussies, Sri Lankans and South Africans in a week-long knockout tournament.

The winner would play the Stanford Super Stars, a West Indies XI consisting of the best players in the inter-island domestic Twenty20 tournament.

? Malcolm Speed is to step down from his position as chief executive of the International Cricket Council next June.

Cricket's world governing body has confirmed Speed will not seek an extension of his contract when it expires in 2008, when he will have served seven years in the post.

Speed, 58, headed the Australian cricket board before succeeding fellow Australian Dave Richards.

During Speed's reign, the ICC departed Lord's, the body's home for almost a century, to move to Dubai. PA

© 2007 The Sunday Age

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