Signed, Sealed, Contested: The Legal Enforcement of Cricket Contracts

As the mega cricketing season kicked off in India, with the start of Indian Premier League (IPL), the country prepared itself for 2 long months of anticipations and excitement. With broadcasters set to telecast this mega-entertainment season on OTT as well as tele-platforms, and franchises ready to host their contracted players, the season has been an intense one. However, an important problem persists. The mega auction concluded 4 months before the official kick off highlighted the possibilities of pre-season injuries, and the issue becomes a glaring one as the season gets closer, forcing astaggering number of replacements by the franchise, opening floor for debates and discussions concerning the regulatory framework for these replacements. Prior to this season of IPL, the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI), came out with detailed regulations forselected players backing out from the season, attracting punishments and stringent measures.

Multiple cricketing leagues have clashing tournament schedules which leads to situations where players back out from one league to play for another. At a macro level, the involvement of other leagues and different cricket boards can lead to the imposition of stringent regulations in the near future. The issue surfaced recently when Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) served a legal notice to South African all-rounder Corbin Bosch for allegedly backing out from the Pakistan Super League (PSL), to play for the Mumbai Indians franchise in the upcoming IPL season. The issue between two rival leagues, occurs due to overlapping timeframes of PSL and IPL this year. In the future, such overlapping of leagues is inevitable owing to busy cricket schedules. With players engaged in several leagues worldwide, a major issue would be ensuring that players comply with the contractual obligations listed and the onus of ensuring the same lies with cricket boards to ensure. This issue would also entail the issue of penalties that can be laid down by the Boards for non-compliances.

The blog takes note of the “Corbin Bosch” incident in the IPL v. PSL narrative round the media platforms currently. With a general description of the incident, the author tries to carve out potential issues in sports agreement enforcements in the cricketing landscape. A comparatively analysis with the Dispute Resolution in “footballing world” tries to put forth suggestions that can be incorporated for better resolution mechanism in terms of agreement enforcements.

The Corbin Bosch Case

As already discussed in brief, the Corbin Bosch case is a peculiar legal dispute being a first of its kind, but feared by the cricketing leagues to set precedents for further contractual violations by players looking for greener pastures. Corbin Bosch who did not make the cut in the mega IPL auction held last year, was signed by Peshawar Zalmi franchise in the PSL draftin the diamond category with a salary amounting to PNR 50 to 75 Lakhs. However, the South African all-rounder rescinded this contract citing unreasonable grounds, and was later signed as a replacement to his compatriot, Lizaad Williams, by the Mumbai Indians to play for the IPL season in 2025. PCB, served a show-cause notice to Corbin Bosch, to provide reasons for such withdrawal within a reasonable time, the failure of which would attract stringent actions,including monetary penalties and a ban on future participation. The notice issued to the agent and representative of Corbin Bosch in South Africa demanded for an immediate response by the cricketer and ordered that a failure to do so could result in the imposition of a future ban. Upon the formal apology by the player before the start of season April 11, PCB issued a monetary fine as well as a one year ban on the cricketer from participating in the league.Another possible instance where a contract breach could be seen in the Emirates Cricket Board investigating a potential breach of contract by Pakistan player Usman Khan in March 2024, including national as well as league cricket in UAE.

Effective Resolution: A Myth?

For long, the relationship with players has been regulated through contractual framework, not only in cricket but also in other leading sports like football, basketball, etc. However, the present issue remains unresolved. For instance, this contractual framework has been called into question in matters concerning player vs. board dispute, like in West Indies cricket, where the players boycotted their central contracts to serve a more economically benefitting franchise cricket around the world. The contractual questions and disputes regarding freedom of players also arose in Board vs. franchise, where the players’ obligation towards the central contract is seen as a mandate of primacy over franchise cricket. For e.g., in Indian cricket where players are not allowed to play international franchise cricket, or in Australian cricket, where players have to serve national duty first over the franchise obligations.

The arising disputes of franchise v. franchise disputes in different cricket leagues have not been elaborated upon. The contractual framework, including the terms and conditions about player remuneration, time period of engagement, exclusivity clauses that exclude them from other engagements in agreement period, and penalties for violation, is in itself quite complex. In the current scenario, the penalty clause in a particular agreement is the only viable option for tackling the breach of contractual terms in cricketing agreement framework, owing tojurisdictional challenges in taking any other legal action against the player. However, theimposition of penalties leads to the question of deterrence, and this is closely related to the point of inequitable distribution of resources among different cricket boards and franchises. This is because a player paying a particular amount of penalty for breaching a contract with one league, may be getting a comparatively higher pay for playing in the other league. For instance, the 2-year ban on Harry Brook after he violated his contractual obligation with the Delhi Capitals, set a precedent of deterrence that is more effective whencompared to penalties in other cricket leagues. The IPL provides higher perks such as ahigher pay and other economic benefits to players as opposed to other leagues in the cricketworld. This is reflected in the present case too, as Corbin Bosch chose IPL over PSL, possibly due to the reasons of economic gains.

The imposition of a penalty is not the only recourse. Franchises can opt to take legal actionsagainst the players. However, this comes with its own set of complex issues. The question of jurisdiction is the most obvious implication, with the player, franchise and the new franchise all situated in different countries and jurisdictions, a singular judicial set-up cannot cater to the resolution needs, and therefore, without a neutral forum with universal jurisdiction, the dispute resolution can’t be arrived at. An example of such a neutral forum can be Centre forSports Arbitration (CAS), which shall be discussed in the next section of this blog. Along with jurisdictional challenges, something equally significant is the democratic ideology. With an increase in recognition of labor laws and significance of democratic rights and libertybeing extended to player fraternity, legal disputes of such kind against players, merely for making a choice of one franchise over other, definitely would strike at the idea of democracy.

Resolution Mechanism: Agreement Enforcement in the Footballing Landscape

What seems inevitable in the world of cricket has already been seen in the footballing landscape. With a number of cases relating to contractual breaches of player agreements between football clubs and players, an efficient parallel can be drawn to carve out a resolution mechanism that can potentially be the torchbearer of resolving such disputes in the cricketing landscape.

Firstly, most player agreements are based on terms of FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, with alterations based on National legal frameworks. The presence of such a uniform set of regulations allows for the setting up of a level-playing field, especially for clubs that are present in different corners of the world. Secondly, the termination of these contracts can only be out of the reason of “just cause” or “mutual agreement”, with instancesthat reveal high penalties against the party unjustly breaching contractual obligation. Thirdly, the dispute resolution mechanism in the football world centers around FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC), where most of the international disputes between players and clubs are resolved, especially when the players and clubs are present in different legal jurisdictions. The appeals to DRC’s decisions lie to Centre of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), acting as a final authority. Further, a number of other tribunals, etc. exist for effective dispute redressal. Lastly, to avoid conflicts between different clubs over signing of players, there exists a provision of “Release clauses” in contractual frameworks. According to this clause, a pre-determined transfer fee is set out, which a club has to immediately accept for transfer of its signed player, if any other club offers the said amount to the club. The presence of such clauses ensures an efficient balance between player freedom, and conflict management between different franchises.

Conclusion

The setup here is akin the landscape in football where players and franchises belong to different jurisdictions. The most effective mechanism to resolve disputes in such cases can be the formulation of a universal contractual framework that is applicable to cricket leagues across the globe. Drawing from FIFA's approach in this regard, the framework can be created under the aegis of the ICC (International Cricket Council) with representatives from various cricket boards all around the world.

This contractual framework and punishments prescribed therein can help resolve the issue of differential deterrence for violation of agreement terms and conditions in franchise cricket, and curtail the negative impacts of inequitable resource, and financial power commanded by them.

A neutral international adjudicating authority in form of Arbitral Tribunal similar to DRC can be effective in resolving jurisdictional challenges in disputes among players and franchise. However, extension of this framework to Board v. players disputes can be debated as these issues would potentially bring in questions of the violation of the sovereignty of a particular board, as players under the Central Contract of a particular Board are considered to be solely within the control of that National Board. Lastly, the inclusion of all players under the players’ association can be made mandatory under the universal framework. This would ensure the protection of their rights and give these players a platform to exercise collective bargaining, and also effectively have their representation in the dispute resolution mechanism affecting them. Clauses similar to “Release Clauses” in football agreements, can be introduced in cricket leagues’ franchise-player contracts, to ensure a balance between player freedom and franchise profit.

Author: Shashank is a third-year student at Hidayatullah National Law University.

Editors: Sameer Kashyap (Senior Editor)