In the latest salvo in the bitter pay dispute between Cricket Australia and Australian Cricketers’ Association, the players unveiled plans to take back their own image rights on Wednesday.

What this means is that all the media, advertising and promotional deals of Aussie cricketer will be controlled by the ACA, not CA as they currently are.

This is a huge development in the standoff, which has so far seen threats being from both sides, from not giving central contracts to boycotting the Ashes.

While the CA is yet to respond to this, the image right is a big step in the conflict that has rapidly escalated.

Here’s a look at what exactly has transpired between Cricket Australia and Australian cricketers so far.

The dispute and subsequent issues

The core issue here – CA’s overhaul of the revenue model – began much before the current standoff. The new pay model was presented to the players back in March during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India. Among other things, which included higher gender parity in remuneration, the proposal also included doing away with the fixed revenue-percentage model, something that CA has been persistent with.

CA proposed that the revenue-sharing system which has been around for 20 years be scrapped since more funds were needed for the game’s grassroots. They offered a raise to the players, independent of the revenue the board made, among other things.

“Sutherland indicated that CA wanted to offer guaranteed minimums to the players while keeping any blue sky amounts over and above projections for funding other aspects of the game,” reported ESPNCricinfo.

In other words, all players will be given a fixed amount, irrespective of the amount CA makes through deals involving sponsorship, television etc. Another problem with this proposal is the fact that even if the revenue increased after future deals, only international players will be entitled to the extra amount.

However, ACA and by extension the players, disagreed and wanted to continue with revenue-sharing, saying the system was not broken and did not need fixing. It should be noted that it is Australia’s male international players who are at the forefront of the resistance, quite literally taking one for Australian cricket.

The breaking of the model has been a prolonged bone of contention between the two parties, as is the ACA’s intervention in the issue. ESPNCricinfo reported that Australia’s captains Steven Smith and Meg Lanning had even written to CA last December to accept ACA as the players’ bargaining agent and not go around the association to negotiate directly with the players.

The threat of unemployment from CA

The escalating tension between CA and players reached new heights in May, a month before the current MoU ends in June. CA chief executive James Sutherland (remember the man who thought Virat Kohli can’t spell sorry?) told the players in a blunt email to accept its offer or risk not being paid.

The email read: “CA is not contemplating alternative contracting arrangements to pay players beyond 30 June if their contracts have expired. In the absence of the ACA negotiating a new MOU (memorandum of understanding), players with contracts expiring in 2016-17 will not have contracts for 2017-18... if a new pay deal is not struck”.

Effectively, this was a threat that the current players won’t have contracts after June 30, and thereby will not be paid, if they do not accept the proposal that does away with the revenue-sharing model.

The ACA then offered to mediate with CA over the pay negotiations. However, Sutherland has accused the ACA of having “unfairly placed current players in a difficult position”.

In response, ACA’s chief executive Alistair Nicholson slammed CA’s “incoherence and aggression” in the negotiations. “Clearly, we are disappointed that CA are threatening the players,” Nicholson said in a statement.

The bold player response

In response to the email threat, several past and present Australian cricketers have presented a united front and made it clear which side they stood on. The hashtag #fairshare was used across social media as players such Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Johnson weighed in on the issue.

Peter Handscomb said that all players should be treated equally and raised fears long-form players could be lost to Twenty20 if the current financial model was not retained.

“It’s about being a partner in the game. It’s huge for the players. We all feel we have a genuine role in growing cricket,” Handscomb told The Sunday Age newspaper. “We’re putting ourselves out there in public, playing and promoting the game all the time. The revenue-share model helps us feel that we’re really part of the successes or failures.”

The matter escalated further with players suggesting that Australia might not have a team to field, particularly for the Ashes in July, right after the MoU expires on 30 June.

“If it gets to the extreme they might not have a team for the Ashes. really hope they can come to an agreement ... we don’t really want to see this panning out like that where we don’t have a team (and) we don’t have cricket in the Australian summer,” David Warner told The Age newspaper.

Even coach Darren Lehmann admitted that the rapidly escalating dispute might be a distraction and affects Australia’s preparations for the upcoming Champions Trophy.

The image rights play from ACA

With no end in sight to the impasse and the current deal expiring on June 30, the ACA have now tried another play with the plans to form a new business to help the players directly negotiate sponsorship deals. This essentially means that the players own the rights to their image and CA cannot use them in promotions. Bear in mind, the promotions for the Ashes have already begun, some even during the series against India.

The ACA stressed that the idea behind establishing “The Cricketers’ Brand” is to manage and commercialise player’s intellectual property rights, especially in case the players will be unemployed post June 30.

“When players are threatened with unemployment and when they learn they receive zero percent of the digital revenue they generate they are naturally concerned,” said ACA chief executive Alistair Nicholson. “The Cricketers’ Brand has been established to better manage these concerns and those of all affected parties.”

Tim Cruickshank, appointed general manager of the new company, said it was about players taking back control of their intellectual property – a bold step in the ongoing standoff. It now remains to be seen how CA respond to this.

With inputs from AFP