Australia players are being urged to refuse to sign Cricket Australia contracts next year as a row brews over an attempt to snatch 10 per cent of their pay from the Indian Premier League.
The threat, if followed through, could cause a bitter stand-off between the players and administrators.
The Australian Cricketers Association is fuming over what it sees as a backroom deal between Cricket Australia and other boards with the Indian administrators to garnish millions from players contracts.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India, which runs the IPL, has ruled that 10 per cent of foreign players' wages will now go to their respective board.
Cricket Australia has long complained it earns nothing from the IPL, which cashes in on its big names.
The association pushed in talks with player representatives last year for a similar cut, but this was rejected by the players.
The players' association believes the Cricket Australia board has gone behind its back to grab the money because it knew BCCI would not pay compensation.
Under the current arrangements with players, Cricket Australia deducts 2.5 per cent of their wages for every month overseas playing cricket for other employers.
Players' association chief executive Paul Marsh is outraged at the latest decision.
"The Australian Cricketers Association has made it known to Cricket Australia that any attempt to take 10 per cent, or any other amount for that matter, from the IPL salaries of Australian players is completely unacceptable and will be opposed in the strongest possible way by us," he said.
"CA simply has no right to effectively charge a commission on income earned by players from outside their employment to CA.
"This is akin to an employer trying to take 10 per cent of an employee's wages from a second job he works on weekends."
Marsh called on Cricket Australia to refuse the arrangement with BCCI or face the consequences.
"Regardless of the decision made by the IPL, we would hope CA would act in good faith to its players by not taking this proposed 10 per cent," he said.
"Should they seek to do, so we would expect players to give serious consideration to either not signing an IPL contract that contains this deduction, or not signing future CA contracts."
The backdoor arrangement could lead to a number of anomalies.
Cricketers such as New South Wales Blues batsman Dave Warner is on a state contract and could be paying as much to Cricket Australia to play IPL as he is paid to play for the Blues.
It could be in his best interests to refuse a state contract and keep all his IPL earnings.
It is unclear if Cricket Australia will get 10 per cent of the pay of retired players such as Shane Warne, Andrew Symonds and Adam Gilchrist.
If it does, it stands to pocket more than $100,000 a player at the current rates.
Player agents will also miss out on the deal with BCCI, which claims part of its intention was to cut out managers and deal directly with players and boards.
"All player contracts will now be managed by BCCI and signed by BCCI along with the franchise and the player," BCCI president Shashank Manohar told Indian newspaper DNA.
"A new player registration and contract management process will be detailed soon. No player contracts can be signed until then. Player regulation for the 2011 season will be circulated soon to all franchisees which will detail the player contract, registration and signing process."
There were 65 foreign players from six countries taking part in IPL 3, although almost all players will go back into an auction pool for IPL 2011.
The BCCI refuses to deal with player associations, and has used the IPL to split such groups.
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