September 26 Thursday 2002
New Zealand players share concerns over ban talk

WELLINGTON: New Zealand's players share concerns expressed by the international players' body, Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA), in relation to International Cricket Council's (ICC) demands over sponsorship rights of players for international tournaments. At one stage there was a suggestion that players unable to sign their contracts should be banned. However, the meeting of 120 players in Colombo from the member countries of FICA, South Africa, Zimbabwe, England, the West Indies, New Zealand, Australia and Sri Lanka, were united in the view that player bans were "highly inappropriate."

New Zealand players' representative Heath Mills, who attended the two meetings in Colombo, said the only way a player could be banned was for breach of the ICC's code of conduct for players, and that had never been invoked to date. New Zealand's players come off their existing contracts on September 30, and they are in negotiations with New Zealand Cricket at the moment.

Mills said because of that he was not prepared to comment on any aspect of negotiations but was hopeful the end result of discussions would reflect level of standing of other players around the world. Mills had met with joint chairman of FICA, Australian Tim May and England's David Graveney before, but he had not been at such a big forum as that represented in Colombo. It had been an extremely useful exercise from his point of view and allowed him to compare notes with other representatives on issues of interest to New Zealand's players.

Mills said it had been obvious the players as a group had concerns with apparently conflicting messages from the ICC in the latter stages of pre-Champions Trophy negotiations in relation to amount of time the ICC needed to have control of players' sponsorship rights before and after the tournament.

India were in the process of forming their own players' association and their placement on FICA would give that body even greater strength. He said it was unlikely that Pakistan or Bangladesh would form players' groups owing to nature of their cultures. However, they were likely to have representatives at future meetings. Another round of negotiations between the ICC and the FICA will be required before the World Cup in South Africa in February-March.