SACA MEDIA RELEASE: NON PAYMENT OF SRI LANKAN PLAYERS
The South African cricketers have added their voice to the call to the Sri Lankan Cricket board to settle the outstanding amounts due to the Sri Lankan players.
The Sri Lankan cricketers have not been paid by Sri Lanka Cricket since March 2011 and a total amount of approximately US $6 million is owed to the players.
"We want to show our support for Tillakaratne Dilshan and our fellow professional cricketers from Sri Lanka on this issue" said Proteas test captain, Graeme Smith. "It is far from ideal that the Sri Lankan team is about to start a tough Test series and ODI series here in South Africa without having been paid any of their remuneration for the last eight months".
"In this age of professionalism in cricket this kind of thing should not be happening" said Proteas ODI Captain, AB De Villiers. "It's a credit to the players that they've kept playing for their country since March despite all of this. We hope it gets sorted out soon."
"It's difficult to understand how a board which has just co-hosted the ICC Cricket World Cup can find itself in such a desperate financial situation that it can't pay its national team of fully contracted professionals for months on end", said SACA's Chief Executive, Tony Irish. "We know that the players association in Sri Lanka is doing what it can to sort this out for the players and we hope for some positive progress before the first match of the tour starts against SA 'A' in Bloemfontein next Friday".
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