Butt and Asif are facing charges of conspiracy to cheat, and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, after allegedly conspiring with their agent Mazhar Majeed, and fast-bowler Mohammad Amir to agree to bowl pre-determined no-balls. Butt and Asif deny the charges.
The information given by Khan regarding various payments made by the PCB to the players and the mode of these imbursements were of great importance as large sums of cash were found in the hotel rooms of the two banned cricketers during police raids last year in England. The players at the time had attempted to account for the money during police questioning.
The prosecution at Southwark Crown Court asked Khan to detail all of the various payments made to the PCB’s contracted players. Khan, appearing through video link from Lahore, explained the breakdown of pay to both the prosecuting lawyer Aftab Jafferjee and the two players’ legal representatives.
Rs3m loyalty payments made by PCB
It emerged that a fee of Rs3 million was made to players to deter them from signing up to the ICL, which equates to approximately £22,000, a piece of information revealed by Butt’s legal representative Ali Bajwa and confirmed by Khan.
Pakistan lost several cricketers to the unsanctioned league prompting the board to give loyalty payments to those players who did not sign up for the ICL, of which Butt was one.
Bajwa’s line of questioning also revealed that the then PCB chairman Nasim Ashraf offered to triple player bonus payments for a match against India in Bangladesh in 2008, when Butt scored a ton.
During the police searches £30,002 was found in Butt’s hotel room as well as various cash in other currencies. Asif had a little over £8,000 in his room. With that background, the prosecution gleaned the legitimate breakdown of pay made to its players.
Butt and Asif, the court was told, were both ‘A’ category players and were paid a monthly retainer of Rs 250,000 amounting to £1800. For match fees they received Rs350,000 per Test (£2500), 300,000 per One-Day International (£2200) and 250,000 per Twenty20. All these payments are made by cheque in Pakistan.
Payments for man-of-the-match or series awards and series wins are calculated at the end of tours in the PCB office and again paid by cheque in Pakistan.
In terms of allowances, the jury was told that for the ten-week tour of England in 2010, the maximum Butt could have pocketed from the PCB was £10,500. All players earned £8,000 for the tour but because Butt was captain he received an added captaincy bonus that was worth £250 a week.
The case continues.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2011.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ