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The International Cricket Council (ICC) is working towards shortening the difference between the prize money for tournament winners in Men's and Women's categories, claimed a report. ICCI CEO Geof Allardice has revealed that the global cricket governing is planning to bring parity in prize money for "finishing positions of teams" in women's and men's world tournaments in the next cycle. Notably, the prize money the winners of the 2022 ICC Women's World Cup will be getting will be around one-third of what England received after winning the 2019 Men's World Cup.
In an interview with ESPNCricinfo, Allardice talked about multiple points related to the growth of women's cricket. He assured that the governing body has got things sorted and will try to implement from the next tournament onwards. “One of the things that we did at the start of the cycle was we projected through this event cycle – most of the ICC’s finances are done with an eight-year view – and what we’ve been trying to do over this cycle is bridge the gap between the women’s prize money and the men’s prize money,” Allardice was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.com.
"We are about to start discussions around the next cycle and one of the starting points for that discussion is going to be trying to get parity for the finishing positions of teams in women's events and comparable men's events. So we're not there yet, but we're on the journey to getting towards prize money parity," he added.
Notably, ICC has increased the prize money for the 2022 edition of the Women's World Cup by two times (USD 1.32 million) what it was in 2017. But still, it is USD 6.5 million less than what England Men's team received in 2019.
Why is this difference so much?
The Chief Executive Officer of the global cricket governing body also reasoned on why the gap is so much. Allardice revealed that since the women's version of the World Cup is only an eight-team affair, the prize money is less than its men counterpart. "We're coming from a long way back and we're making progress in that [prize money disbursement] area," he said. "In terms of where we're at, I mean, the tournaments have got a different number of teams; they're different lengths," Allardice reasoned.
When is Women's World Cup going to be a ten-team affair?
Although Allardice's explanation may seem reasonable, the question that arises is when will Women's World Cup be also a ten-team affair like the Men's World Cup. To this, the ICC CEO assured that this can only be achieved by 2029.