June 22, 2015
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: In comments that are certain to make Cricket Australia sit up and take notice, David Warner admitted that should the rumored rebel league table a $AUS 50million for his services, he would consider it.
June 22, 2015
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: In comments that are certain to make Cricket Australia sit up and take notice, David Warner admitted that should the rumored rebel league table a $AUS 50million for his services, he would consider it.
Recent reports have suggested that the Essel Group, which has registered company names in countries across the world, was prepared to invest significant sums of money to set up a new world governing body and a Twenty20 league – a move that has been likened to Kerry Packer and his World Series Cricket in 1977.
Their plans put the International Cricket Council on high alert, and they even took up the matter at a board meeting.
One particular report, from FairFax media, suggested that Warner and Michael Clarke could be offered $50 million deals over a ten-year span to tempt them away from their CA contracts.
Warner was refreshingly honest in saying he’d consider the offer, if any. “I don’t like pointing things at people, but say for instance in the NRL or NFL or NBA if someone puts out a couple of extra thousand dollars on the table, those people generally nine times out of 10 take that,” Warner told Sky Sports Radio on Monday (June 22). “It’s about being honest. You can’t rule it out, you can’t say no, because at the end of the day … we love playing the sport we do but we also love getting paid for what we do, so if we can be honest and upfront (that is better).
“If I say I’d never take it and all of a sudden I do, it looks stupid on your behalf. I’m just being honest in saying it’s not out of the question, and I’d certainly have to think about it.”
Warner also suggested that while the ‘Big Three’ — Australia, India and England — could possibly ward off potential suitors from their players, the other boards may find it harder to do that. “You have three or four teams where the average wage is going to be fantastic and some other teams are going to be not as fortunate,” he said. “And those sums, if you’re putting them out there it’s a no-brainer for some of those teams.
“At the end of the day people have to survive in this world, and it’s either work and be paid for what you love doing or work and be paid for something you don’t like doing. There’s options there.”
Courtesy: Wisden India
