ECB to scrutinise county spending to make sure women’s game is supported

Counties who operate Tier 1 women’s teams will be required to spend £1.3m exclusively on women’s cricket

First-class counties will be subject to regular financial scrutiny under radical new plans to put the women’s domestic game on “the same footing” as men’s cricket.
In English cricket’s latest attempt to narrow the stark levels of investment into men’s and women’s cricket which were laid bare in the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket report published last year, the England and Wales Cricket Board will pour up to £5 million annually into the women’s professional game between 2025 and 2028.
The ambitious plans – which were first revealed by Telegraph Sport last year and are expected to incur losses of £86.7 million over the next five seasons – will see the eight women’s regional teams embedded within the First Class County structure and compete in the top level of an expanded three-tiered system from 2025.
Crucially, first-class counties who operate Tier 1 women’s teams will be closely monitored to ensure they are adequately spending £1.3 million of central funding exclusively on women’s cricket.
“It’s going to be something that we put into the County Partnership Agreement process,” said Rob Andrew, the ECB’s managing director for the professional game. “By doing this, we can put the women’s and men’s game on the same footing in terms of the standards that we are going to hold the counties to.
“We will hold them to account in terms of ring fencing the money that’s going in for the areas, whether that’s into staff salaries facilities, so we can absolutely put the men’s and women’s team in a Tier 1 county on exactly the same footing.”
The radical shake-up follows the ECB’s landmark decision to raise women’s international match fees to the same level as their male counterparts last August, as the body looks to make English cricket more inclusive.
The women’s regional model and men’s first-class county structure is seen as the last major point of difference in how cricket is perceived across both genders. By closely aligning men’s and women’s teams – in a similar move to how gender parity has been a focal point of the Hundred – the ECB hopes to gradually wipe out the sense of ‘otherness’ that it claims currently exists among women’s regional teams and competitions.
“We are not going to put a hurry up on the women’s game,” said Gould. “We’re not saying, ‘This is the amount of investment and we need to see x amount of return within one, two or three years. I often get the question, ‘When are men and women going to be paid equally?’
“I can’t answer that question. Neither are we going to rush this through, we’re in this for the long term. We are hoping that over the five, 10, 15 years we will see a significant uplift in broadcast revenue and ticket sales in the women’s game.
“All we know is that investing in the women’s game is the single biggest opportunity for cricket not just in this country but across the world.”