Australia vice-captain David Warner has issued a new statement regarding Cricket Australia’s (CA) handling of a pay dispute and once again raised the chances of an Ashes series boycott by players later this year. CA has threatened not to pay contracted players beyond the June 30 expiry of their current financial deal if they do not accept a new offer.
“If we are unemployed, we have no contracts, we can’t play,” he told Fairfax Media on Monday in England at the Champions Trophy.
He said, “We are pretty sure that they will come to an agreement. But, as you know, we are going to be unemployed come July 1. So we have to wait and see. It is only what we hear in the media and that’s how CA have been driving it the whole way. They have been using the media as a voice and we get the message from there.”
Warner again pledged his “full support” to fellow players and affirmed he is “100 per cent” behind the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA). “They are doing a great job for us,” he said of the players’ union’s efforts in the dispute. Warner added that he remains hopeful a new Memorandum of Understanding can be struck between now and June 30. “It is a big thing that we could be unemployed, but from us, our job is to play cricket, focus on winning the Champions Trophy and not let our country down,” he said.
