SUNIL JAYASIRI 
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World champs get what they asked for-SLC
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Sri Lanka cricketers who refused to sign their annual contracts and left for their victorious campaign in the ICC World T20 tournament in Bangladesh over a disputed payment from International Cricket Council (ICC) events, have been assured of receiving almost what they demanded and have actually clinched much more with the prize money for winning the world title, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Treasurer Nuski Mohamed told “Daily Mirror”.
SLC has promised the team US $ half a million (Rs. 65 million) as participation fee and win bonus of US $ one million (Rs. 130 million). The prize money for winning the ICC World T20 title is US $ 1.1 million (Rs. 143 million).
Mohamed said that SLC would receive US $ 8.9 million from the ICC World T20 for taking part in the event and pointed out that with the prize money of US $ 1.1 million, the total amount SLC would receive from ICC would be US $ ten million.
The team which would receive the participation fee of US $ half a million plus the US $ one million win bonus added to the US $ 1.1 million prize money would make it a total of US $ 2.6 million, a figure which would further be enhanced by the match fees and seniority fees bringing the total figure to around US $ 2.8 million or a percentage of 28 from the total SLC income from the event.
The discretion of how participation fees, prize money and win bonus would be distributed among team members lies with the team captain, and the usual practice is to distribute it equally which means each player can expect to earn in the range of US $ 200,000 (Rs. 26 million) for their world title winning performance.
“We haven’t received money from ICC yet. It might take more than a month for that money to come though I think prize money would be released quickly by ICC,” said Mohamed.
“We do not get involved in distributing prize money or bonuses. The team has the discretion on how they disburse that money among team members,” said Mohamed.
He added that players have little excuse now to refuse signing the annual contracts as they have received the percentage they demanded from the year’s only ICC event.
“When they come to this side one day, they will understand the position. We are not here just to pay the national team. We have much bigger responsibilities to keep the game alive. If the game dies without money, will there be a national team to win world titles?,” questioned Mohamed.
“We have to look after the schools, clubs, districts, provinces, ‘A’ team, Youth teams, women’s cricket, academies. Then we have to maintain grounds and stadia. You have to understand that we do all these things with this money we get from the ICC. That is why we cannot pay them as they demand, because if we do, from where can we find the money to do all that development?,” questioned Mohamed. He however said they had no qualms about recognising achievements and would be prepared to reward the players according to the performances.
“We have been reasonable to the limit we can be reasonable. Take the last Asia Cup in 2012. We even lost to Bangladesh and lost all our matches. Despite that poor performance we had to pay them all that money. But now, things are different. There are less doles, but massive incentives if they perform. That’s the difference,” Mohamed added.
Mohamed revealed that the prize money or participation fees due to SLC from Asia Cup had still not been received.
“The finance committee of the Asian Cricket Council has to meet and finalise those payments. I am also in that committee, but we haven’t still fixed a date for the meeting. We will probably meet later this month to sort that out,” said Mohamed.
Mohamed said that Sri Lanka players who won the Asia Cup would be awarded a US $ 100,000 winning bonus as promised by the SLC.(Channaka de Silva)
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