Dubai, March 11: Cricket Ireland announced on Thursday that it will invest €1.5m into the country’s women’s game.
The investment in women’s cricket in Ireland will lead to professional contracts for 20 female cricketers, seven of which are full-time, nine part-time and four non-retainer contracts. All full-time contracts will start this month, meaning Ireland will have the country’s first full professional female cricketers in the 2022 summer season.
Part-time contracts are designed to support players who are in education, offering financial support to finance their training, development and summer playing schedule.
“The behind-the-scenes work to get to this point has actually been three years. Building on the team’s performance at the ICC T20 Women’s World Cup in 2018, we as an organization committed to embarking on a journey to professionalizing women’s cricket. It was not just a good thing, it was the right thing to do,” Warren Deutrom, chief executive of Cricket Ireland, said in a statement issued by the ICC.
“The time for women’s cricket has arrived around the world – we have seen the incredible growth and professionalization of the women’s game in several major nations such as Australia, England and India and the strong focus on women’s cricket in the new ICC strategy. Now it is Ireland. back, “he added.
The total of 1.5 million euros announced on Thursday represents a threefold increase in spending from 2019.
“It’s important to note that today’s announcements are not a case of ‘set and dusted’. This is not a final destination. This is just the beginning of our new era,” said Richard Holdsworth, Cricket’s Director of High Performance. Ireland.
“In 2021, our senior women’s team qualified for the ICC Women’s Championship; we don’t want to compete in this competition just once, we want to stay there. We want to cement ourselves at the top of the women’s game. Today can be the culmination of three years of work , but it also represents the first day of a new project. A project to keep us at the top level and not only to participate but to really compete against the best nations”, he added.
In addition to the confirmation of the 20 game contracts, Cricket Ireland has confirmed that head coach Ed Joyce has agreed a three-year extension to his contract. And Joyce will oversee a busy summer, with Ireland hosting Australia, South Africa and Pakistan in June and July.