The Indian women’s cricket team, which made the finals of last year's World T20 in Australia, will be credited their share from the USD 500,000 prize money by the end of this week, a senior BCCI official told the Telegraph after it came to light that they are yet to be given their due.
A report in the UK-based newspaper quoted an official from the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) as saying that the BCCI is yet to disburse the runner-up prize money of the global event, which was held in February-March last year.
Harmanpreet Kaur marshalled the troops as India rallied through to the finals at the marquee event, where they lost to hosts Australia. "The members of the Indian women's cricket team will be getting the share of their prize money by the end of this week. The transactions have been processed and I am expecting that they will receive their share very soon," the senior board functionary informed PTI.
Asked about the long delay, he explained: "We received the prize money amount late last year." The processing of players' payments in BCCI does take around three to four months for all teams (across age groups).
Since last year, the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai have remained shut owing to the horrific COVID-19 situation across the country leading to delay in payments across the board. "It's not just one payment for women. Whether it's the central contract of the men's team, international match fees, domestic fees of men and women, everything is taking a bit of time because of the prevailing situation," a former BCCI office-bearer, still associated with a state unit, highlighted, according to a report in The Indian Express.
"Even before the COVID situation worsened, the domestic season would end in March and the complete payments were only cleared by September. So, in this case you need to check when did BCCI receive the payments. If they received just after the tournament, then it's a delay but processing does take some time. And to the best of my knowledge, it's the same for both men and women." he further noted.
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