The Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) has started legal proceedings against the International Cricket Council in a dispute over image rights, claiming that they do not receive a ‘fair share’. The FICA has raised concerns with the ICC more than a year ago.
The International federation represents the majority of players from the Test nations except for Indian and Pakistani cricketers. According to FICA, there have been discussions with the cricket’s governing body for several months over the issue but they have always failed to make a breakthrough in the past year.
Tom Moffat, Chief Executive of FICA, while raising his concerns regarding ICC, said, “We have done our best over more than a year to try to resolve these issues in a constructive way with the ICC and they haven’t been interested in working with us on a fair outcome. We have discussed this with the international players from the FICA countries over a number of months and we have had no option but to commence legal proceedings on these points given there are significant principles of fairness at stake.”
On the other hand, the cricket council shares a different set of thoughts on this matter. ICC believes players are being adequately compensated for their image rights. The cricketers are receiving a percentage of the revenue in prize money but that is tied to their team’s performance.
The issue between FICA and ICC is the first major dispute of its kind in a very long time. In the early 2000s, the cricket fraternity has seen various such incidents, in which the hosts of ICC tournaments were often preceded by fears of team withdrawals, or select weak teams because the players were not happy with the terms on offer.