Advertisement

Counties back Sir Ian Botham over cricket transfer system

Sir Ian Botham says cricket needs to follow the suit of football  - reuters
Sir Ian Botham says cricket needs to follow the suit of football - reuters

Leading figures at County Championship sides have backed Sir Ian Botham's call for English cricket to introduce “a transfer or similar system of compensation” for counties losing their young players.

Botham made his plea after Durham lost their promising all-rounder Paul Coughlin to Nottinghamshire for next season. Nottinghamshire coach Mick Newell also refused to rule out a move for another Durham player, Keaton Jennings.

“Counties need to be protected from losing their young players,” said Richard Goatley, Middlesex’s CEO. “A level of financial compensation is appropriate, but not a transfer battle with fees and windows and agents getting involved.”

That call has been echoed by Surrey, who did not receive any compensation when their promising 21-year-old batsman Dominic Sibley moved to Warwickshire earlier this season.

On that basis, the club have written to the other 17 first-class counties proposing the following formula: “Any home developed player below the age of 24 who chooses to move to a new county, despite being offered a new and improved contract by his home county, would attract a compensation fee payable by the new county of 2 x the final salary offer by the home county.”

England's Ashes squad: Who is on the plane to Australia, who is in departures and who's an unlikely tourist?
England's Ashes squad: Who is on the plane to Australia, who is in departures and who's an unlikely tourist?

Surrey’s chief executive Richard Gould added: “What we are in favour of is a system whereby academies and development programmes are protected. We believe a (rival) county should pay compensation for a player who moves under the age of 24.”

Other ideas are also being considered. Gloucestershire’s chief executive Will Brown told Telegraph Sport that he would "be quite supportive of a football-style transfer window” where deals could be done, while Yorkshire’s CEO Mark Arthur favours keeping and extending the system of loans. “I personally believe players should stay with their clubs (until the end of the season) but they should be allowed to go out on loan - and if that loan becomes a permanent move then so be it,” he said.

The trouble is that by the time a formula is agreed among the counties, it is likely Durham will be denuded still further, following the departures of Mark Stoneman and Scott Borthwick to Surrey, and Coughlin to Nottinghamshire, while Keaton Jennings is also reported to be thinking of a route south. The punishment the ECB meted out on Durham, for their financial irregularities, has perhaps been even more brutal than they intended.