Cricket’s transfer system: the secret history
Story: George Dobell
This feature first appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of SPIN magazine
In the beginning
Monty Panesar, Steven Davies, Gareth Batty, Rory Hamilton-Brown, Matthew Hoggard… plenty of big-name players will be appearing for different counties in 2010. But the notion of players moving between clubs, certainly with any kind of ease, is relatively recent.Until the 1960s, restrictive qualification rules were part of the reason. The counties also had great power and could withhold the registration of players even if they were out of contract. Those who moved did so at considerable cost. Peter Richardson, Wally Hammond, Tom Graveney and MJK Smith all missed seasons as they served qualification periods between counties, while, as late as 1972, Bob Willis missed almost half the season after joining Warwickshire from Surrey.
“The power of the MCC and TCCB [the forerunner of the ECB] was overwhelming,” recalls Jack Bannister, who played for Warwickshire from 1950 to 1969 and went on to serve as secretary, chairman and treasurer of the Professional Cricketers’ Association. “Individuals’ rights to work were never considered a factor and no decision was ever challenged. People didn’t think of taking legal action then and players had almost no rights at all.”
birth of the professional cricketers association
Formed in 1967, the PCA – effectively the players’ union – gave professional cricketers far greater power and representation. It was inspired by the Professional Footballers’ Association, who in 1963 had helped George Eastham challenge the slavish retain-and-transfer system in football. Until that time, football clubs could retain a player’s registration to prevent them from signing for anyone else, while refusing to pay them if they requested a transfer.
“Fred Rumsey was responsible for the formation of the PCA,” recalls Jack Bannister. “When he played for Somerset, he took the opportunity to talk to the opposition at every game and always said ‘It’s about time cricket had the equivalent of the PFA.’ Eventually it was formed and Jimmy Hill – the chairman of the PFA – came and spoke to us at our first meeting.”
Tom Cartwright’s move to Somerset, 1969-70
Unhappy with life at Edgbaston, the Warwickshire and England seamer Cartwright was keen to move to Somerset. He was out of contract but not free to leave as Warwickshire, who wanted him to re-sign, refused to release his registration. It became a test case, cricket’s answer to the Eastham affair. Eventually, after the PCA represented him at an appeal to the Registration Committee of the MCC, Cartwright became the first professional cricketer to move without the approval of his county and without the need of serving a period of residential qualification.
“It was a very important case,” Bannister says. “Cartwright was the first player to move when a county didn’t want them to do so. It was the first major test of the PCA and it did set a precedent. Once the Cartwright principle had been established – that players had the right to work – then the counties started to see the light.”
The counties hardly took the decision with good grace. Not only did Warwickshire refuse to transfer Cartwright’s not-contributory pension but at a subsequent registration meeting Wilf Wooller, the chairman of Glamorgan, asked for an amendment of the minutes. “He said they should state that Cartwright’s release was achieved ‘by fraud’,” says Bannister. “He said the case would present ‘the thin edge of a considerable wedge’.”
He was right about the latter at least. The counties knew the world was changing and their power was ebbing away. Things would never be quite the same.
Common Market to Kolpak
Britain’s entry into the Common Market in 1973 accelerated players’ freedom of movement. Counties soon accepted that players with European passports were eligible, while there were also huge implications from the Bosman (1995) and Kolpak (2003) rulings, both of which encouraged the free movement of labour.
There were two key outcomes. The first was to increase the number of non-England qualified players in the county game just as the ECB was seeking to decrease it; the second was to increase the number of legal challenges to the cricketing regulations. Players and counties both successfully appealed ECB decisions resulting in a gradual erosion in the ECB’s regulatory powers. “The regulations are entirely reactionary and driven by employment law,” says Janet Fisher, who was Administration Manager at the ECB from 1997.
World Series Cricket
When England players first signed for Kerry Packer’s World Series – effectively a privately-run ‘rebel’ league – in 1977 the counties were incensed. Indeed, the ICC and TCCB issued edicts banning the ‘rebel’ players, including the then-England captain Tony Greig, from Test and county cricket. Packer was not one to be bullied, however.
In September 1977 he funded the challenge of three of his players – Greig, John Snow and Mike Procter – against the TCCB in the High Court. After a seven-week case, the judge ruled in favour of the players and decided that attempts to prevent them appearing in official cricket amounted to restraint of trade.
The self-interest of counties also helped the players. “At the start, all the counties got together and agreed that none of the World Series players would be offered a new contract unless they made themselves available for all England games,” Bannister says. “But then, the day before the Benson and Hedges Cup final, three Kent players – Derek Underwood, Bob Woolmer and Alan Knott – said they wouldn’t play unless they were offered new deal. Kent backed down and before long the rest of the counties followed.”
Salaries also increased. In an attempt to lure players from ‘rebel’ tournaments, authorities realised that cricketers had to be paid far more. For the first time, cricket was subject to the laws of the market.
John Crawley’s move to Hampshire, 2001-2002
John Crawley played 37 Tests for England between 1994 and 2003 but, in time, it may be that his off-field contribution to the game is better remembered than his high-quality batting.
Crawley’s move from Lancashire to Hampshire set an important precedent: it is believed to have inspired the first ‘compensation’ payment; in effect a transfer fee. Crawley supposedly ‘bought out’ the final three years of his contract for a sum in excess of £20,000, though it seems fair to assume he had the support of Hampshire.
The case was complex. Crawley, while captain of Lancashire, fell out with the club’s committee over a variety of issues, particularly what he saw as some unfairness over remunerations, and decided he could no longer represent the club. He engaged the services of Cherie Booth QC (Tony Blair’s wife) and, finally, secured a negotiated release after a hearing at Lord’s.
Dave Edmundson, Lancashire’s progressive chief executive at the time, found himself in a difficult position. Although expected to fight the club’s corner, he found himself agreeing with Crawley. Edmundson, too, left the club.
“Attitudes at the club were Victorian,” Edmundson says now. “It was a classic case of servant v master; of professional v amateur. The club was still run by committees and, as was the case across the sport, they were slow to accept that modern employment law applied to cricket. The attitude was that he had a contract and he had to play. But there was a distinct restraint of trade and eventually the club had to realise that the world had changed. In the end they had to thrash out a compromise.
“John is a very strong character. When he said he’d rather retire than play for Lancashire again, I’ve no doubt he meant it. He turned down a benefit season and was prepared to take the case to the absolute extreme.”
The precedent set by the case has been quoted often in recent months – notably over the Kabir Ali episode – and it does seem that Crawley’s stance forced the counties to accept that attitudes to player movement had to change.
Current regulations
Each April counties circulate their list of players that will be out of contract at the end of the season. Any county wishing to talk to any such player then needs to issue a 28-day approach notifying the player’s current county of their intention. Any illegal approach could, according to ECB regulations, be punished with a fine of up to £50,000. In reality there are many illegal approaches. They go unreported as most counties know they are in no position to cast the first stone. It is also highly debatable that any fine would stand up to a legal challenge.
Rory Hamilton-Brown
Another step towards a full transfer system. Despite the fact that Hamilton-Brown was contracted to Sussex, Surrey decided they wanted him to as captain this winter. Their method was simply to contact Sussex and thrash out a ‘compensation’ payment. While some have questioned the ethics of the method, others would say it’s basic capitalism: Surrey saw something they wanted and bought it.
It is not the first time it has happened. Warwickshire, for example, paid a small fee to Derbyshire to secure the services of Ant Botha towards the end of the 2007 season.
The brazenness of Surrey’s approach is new, however. Never before has a club used their spending power so openly to defy convention or procedure. The move may well come to be remembered as the birth date of cricket’s transfer market.
Kabir Ali
The on-going dispute between the England fast bowler Kabir Ali and Worcestershire threatens to further undermine counties’ hold over players. In 2009, Kabir, with over a year remaining on his contract, announced that he had lost confidence in the cricket management at New Road. After gaining permission to talk to other counties, he decided to join Hampshire.
Kabir’s “loss of confidence” in his employers is founded on allegations that he was forced to play against medical advice (a claim supported by the club’s medical notes) and subsequently exacerbated a pre-existing injury that ruled him out for most of the season. Kabir feels the club failed in its duty of care towards him. This, it is argued, amounts to a breach of contract.
The club, meanwhile, agreed to release Kabir but only if a compensation payment of £60,000 was made. With neither Kabir or Hampshire prepared to pay such a fee, the case is now in the hands of lawyers. Kabir, acting on legal advice, failed to report back for training after Christmas leaving Worcestershire to decide whether to cut their losses or face a legal challenge that could well damage them further.
Agents
Most county chief executives agree that agents are a huge contributory factor in the increased movement of players. Generally agents earn money from ‘finding’ players or from signing-on fees. It is, therefore, in their interest to encourage the movement of players. As Leicestershire’s chief executive David Smith puts it: “Agents make money from player movement. More players have agents than ever before and there’s more activity in the market than ever before.”
While agents are often seen as ‘the enemy’ in cricket (in the following pages, Chris Adams states “If anyone is destabilising county cricket, it’s the agents and managers”), from a player’s perspective they perform a valuable function: earning them the best possible deal and avoiding the need to enter into uncomfortable negotiations themselves. Either way, they’re here to stay.
Power shift
Where once the counties held all the aces, now the players are in control. “They are, absolutely, the crown jewels,” says Edmundson. “Contracts work in one direction now: they exist purely to satisfy players. Clubs have to realise that.”
Mark Newton, CE at Worcestershire agrees. “Contracts are meaningless,” he says. “They only protect the player. They guarantee that clubs must pay the players come hell or high water. My fundamental belief is that players should be able to pursue employment wherever they like but, if one party wants security, there needs to be a reciprocal arrangement. It can’t all work on one direction. So it is quite right that clubs should be compensated if a player wants to leave half-way through a contract.”
The future
Most people expect greater transfer activity. And, with money playing a more significant role, there is a strong possibility that the richer clubs – the likes of Surrey – will start to dominate. “I fear that a gap could start to develop,” admits Newton. “One of the essential ingredients of county cricket’s success is that no one side has dominated. There is a danger, however, that the natural balance will disappear and that market forces will become more and more important.
“I’m not going to moan about what Surrey are doing. They’re a very well run business and they’re free to act as they wish. The counties, generally, are not having a good time, but Surrey are bucking the trend. But I do think, for the good of the game as a whole, that we need to sustain the natural balance.”
The salary cap is one method of retaining some equality between the counties, but that rule already seems hard to enforce and open to abuse. Smith, who along with Adams sit on the ECB working party charged with making the transfer system more open and transparent, expects more activity.
“It’s very difficult to stop,” he says. “Employment law favours the employee far more than the employer and I think it’s inevitable that there will be more player movement. If someone comes in and offers half-a-million pounds for James Taylor then we’d have to listen. But we’re confident that we have created an environment in which players want to stay and that is probably the best way the smaller clubs can compete.
“But it’s not inevitable that a gap will emerge between the big and small counties. Most of the old Test-hosting counties have debts of around £20m to fund ground redevelopments. Their main priority is going to be servicing those loans; I’m not convinced they’ll be able to afford transfer fees.”
Not everyone is convinced there will be more transfer activity. Colin Povey, Warwickshire’s chief executive, believes there’s “simply not enough money in the game to sustain a transfer market. We’re running around trying to find solutions for a problem that doesn’t exist just because of some chequebook diplomacy from Surrey. I don’t foresee any significant change.”
Last word
“Have the changes been good for cricket?” asks Edmundson. “Not really. It’s not progress; it’s just the way of the world. Cricket, like society, has undergone massive changes.”
Bannister agrees. “Like society, cricket changes,” he says. “It’s neither better or worse, it’s just different. But I don’t have much sympathy for the counties. They had to be dragged into every change they made and I’m sure they’d still be treating players just as badly had they not been forced into changing.”
