ACA responds to Cricket Australia Press Conference

Following Cricket Australia (CA) media conference this afternoon calling for arbitration, the ACA makes the following statement.

The ACA has long been calling for a resolution to the MOU negotiation.

And Australia's male and female cricketers want to play the game they love for the fans, for their clubs, states and their country.

This dispute has arisen from Cricket Australia's attempts to, without making the case, end a successful 20-year partnership with players.

Cricket Australia has lost the players and most of the game's stakeholders in the process.

And now, after pushing the players into unemployment, an extended period of a lack of financial transparency, after 3 months of rejecting mediation and only after the recent arrival of the CA CEO into talks, CA discovers the need for urgency.

These facts are the cause of immense frustration to all in the cricket community, including the players.

Yet despite these frustrations, the players have made important concessions and provided a detailed peace plan.

In the last 72 hours alone the ACA has provided CA with:

  • A draft Heads of Agreement;
  • Draft MOU Articles;
  • A draft Tour Contract for Bangladesh

We look forward to these being discussed further by the respective CEOs.

The players continue to do all that they can to resolve the dispute.

CA call for arbitration

Without the presence of the CA CEO, the ACA has for three months been calling for independent mediation to resolve the dispute between the Australian Cricketers Association and Cricket Australia.

In the event of no agreement being reached the ACA believes mediation is the right process to resolve the dispute because it is non-adversarial, voluntary and faces no jurisdictional constraints.

This means both parties with the assistance of an independent mediator work together to fashion an agreed resolution.


Arbitration is an adversarial process more akin to a court room. A further concern is the time it would take for an arbiter to meaningfully understand the complexities of revenue sharing in elite professional sport and then to make judgement. This compromises the needs for urgency.

That said, in the spirit of doing all we can to resolve the dispute, the ACA will examine the correspondence provided by CA and any suggested parameters for arbitration before making further comment.

And will continue to work intensively in the CEO to CEO negotiations which are currently taking place with a view to achieving resolution.