Cricketing legend Doug Walters said Pakistan-born spin bowler Fawad Ahmed should not be selected to play for Australia if he is opposed to wearing the team uniform.
Sports marketers also warned that Cricket Australia’s decision to grant Ahmed’s request to not wear the logo of sponsor Victoria Bitter for cultural reasons could make it harder to attract sponsors in the future.
Walters, who famously drank a record 44 cans of beer on a flight to London to commence the 1977 Ashes tour, said Ahmed should realise that major sponsors like Carlton & United - which is paying more than $10 million to support the Test, one-day and Twenty20 Australian teams - enabled players to command handsome pay packets.
“I think if he doesn’t want to wear the team gear, he should not be part of the team,” Walters said. “Maybe if he doesn’t want to be paid that’s OK.”
Former fast bowler and one-time coach of the Pakistan team, Geoff Lawson, said players should abide by the terms of their employment contract.
“If you don’t agree with the terms you have a choice as to whether you work somewhere else,” he said.
“Players should be able to object on a number of moral grounds - example: against cigarette advertising or perhaps you refuse to play in a country with a military dictatorship or poor human rights record - as long as they don’t accept the payments the sponsor provides.”
The NRL said league stars were required to abide by commercial contractual obligations when selected for teams, such as the NSW Blues, which is also sponsored by VB.
“Of course players have the right not to play, but they do not have the right not to abide by the contractual obligations of a certain team,” NRL communications director John Brady said.
Ahmed, who left Pakistan in 2009 as a refugee and had his Australian citizenship fast-tracked in time for the Ashes tour, told Cricket Australia he was not comfortable wearing the VB logo due to his Islamic beliefs.
Fellow Australian player Usman Khawaja, also a Muslim, has not objected to wearing the uniform.
“Whenever he was asked about his religion, he would just say he was an Australian player, not a Muslim player,” said former Test bowler Mike Whitney, who is president of Khawaja’s former Sydney cricket club, Randwick Petersham.
Sports marketing expert Chris Styring, Sweeney Sports general manager of sports and entertainment, said cricket chiefs had handled the sensitive issue well, but the matter could pose challenges in the future.
“It does potentially open up the floodgates to some pretty hairy issues that will possibly surface more with more players with different religious beliefs rising to the elite sports level,” he said. “What if a Baptist gets picked to play who doesn’t feel comfortable with alcohol?”
Mr Styring, who has handled multi-million sponsorship deals in Formula One and tennis, said it was getting more difficult for sporting codes and teams to sign commercial agreements as questions arose over the acceptability of alcohol and gaming company sponsors.
“It’s important to remember that tobacco is not illegal; alcohol is not illegal, gaming is not illegal, fast food is not illegal,” he said.
A CUB spokeswoman said the VB shirt logo was an important part of the company’s sponsorship but it was sensitive to Ahmed’s religious beliefs.
CA’s executive general manager operations, Mike McKenna, said Ahmed, who played in the Twenty20 match against England last weekend, was thankful for CUB’s understanding.
Former Australian captain Ian Chappell said he was more annoyed that Ahmed’s citizenship had been able to be fast-tracked while the delays faced by other asylum-seekers were “disgraceful”.