Criticism over unnecessarily huge awards for World Cup winning cricketers  

April 12, 2011

Some people are critical that taxpayers’ funds should not be used for awards, when it is needed for more important purposes

Moneylife Digital Team

India won the cricket World Cup after a wait of nearly three decades. And the victory was celebrated with much frenzy-crowds danced on the streets waving the tri-colour, people distributed sweets, many offered prayers in thanksgiving. Some state governments immediately announced big awards to honour the cricketers for their hard-fought achievement.

Amid the celebrations, some citizens are already questioning the wisdom of the authorities to spend so much money from taxpayers' funds that would have been better used to provide a meal to millions of deprived people in our society.

"The taxpayers' money should not be given to cricketers who make tonnes of money from advertisement opportunities over and above the crore they will receive from BCCI and others," said one comment on a discussion portal.

The Indian team has been well rewarded, quite literally. On the night of the victory, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced a cash prize of Rs1 crore for each player in the World Cup winning team. State governments also joined in felicitating the players. The Gujarat government decided to honour two of the players from the state with the "Eklavya Puraskar", its highest sports award. The Maharashtra government announced a cash prize of Rs1 crore each for Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan. The Delhi government said it will give Rs1 crore each to Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ashish Nehra and Virat Kohli and Rs2 crore for captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Another person wrote: "BCCI is a commercial body and can afford any amount of cash or material in prizes. Governments in states and at the Centre must not throw away money like this to the cash-rich players, while there is scarcity of food grains with so many poor living at, or below the poverty line."

Krishnaraj Rao, Mumbai-based Right to Information (RTI) activist, told Moneylife that on the one hand the state information commissions were deprived of funds and on the other each cricketer was being given Rs1 crore. "The budgetary requirement of the chief information commission of Maharashtra for 2010-11 was around Rs6 crore. But only Rs4.59 crore was allocated, for eight offices spread across the state. In fact, the working staff has to manage the entire petty cash requirement on their own," Mr Rao explained. "Such is the situation of the information commissioner's office. And the same state government is rewarding Rs1 crore for a single player."

As per BCCI's retention policy, Indian cricket players are paid retainership fees in three grades. Accordingly, Grade A players like Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir get Rs1 crore as fees, Grade B players like Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli are paid Rs50 lakh as fees, and Grade C players like S Sreeshant, Rohit Kumar get Rs25 lakh. In addition to the retainership fees, players in the eleven for a particular game are paid for the match also. Accordingly, the payment for a Test match is Rs7 lakh, for a one-day international match it is Rs4 lakh and for a T20 match it is Rs2 lakh.

Some activists' have also criticised the government for its bias against sports other than cricket, which they describe as a "pampered child".

"There should be a national consensus and there should be a predetermined norm for prize money for a world champion, an Olympic champion, a national champion and state champion. The principle of equity should determine the prize money. There is no scope for fatalism and emotion-surcharged prize distribution. Let it not generate an adverse impact and a negative fall-out on other sports. Public money belongs to all categories of sports," said another netizen.

A couple of activists have pointed out that as if these cash awards were not enough, there have also been announcements of some life-time benefits for the cricketers. "Not only are they doling out prizes out of our tax money, they are committing for the future as well, with life-time railway passes and so on," read another comment.