A fundraiser for former Australian cricket captain Greg Chappell has surpassed the $80,000 mark after he opened up about his financial problems.
a GoFundMe page was founded in Chappell’s name after he revealed he rents his house and ‘doesn’t live in luxury’.
“I’m not sitting on my toes,” Chappell told News Corp.
‘I certainly don’t want it to sound like we’re in a difficult situation, because we’re not – but we don’t live in luxury either.
Both Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee had fundraising testimonials after their playing careers were over, raising significant funds for their future – but Chappell received none.
Australians have rallied behind Greg Chappell after he opened up about his financial problems
Chappell (pictured after winning the 1981 World Series Cup) says he’s not in a desperate situation, but he’s not living in luxury either
But now a fundraising lunch has been organized to help Chappell. At the time of writing, the fundraising page has raised over $82,000, with a set goal of $250,000.
“I think most people assume that because we played cricket we all live in luxury. While I’m certainly not crying poor, we’re not reaping the benefits that today’s players are.”
Two of the cricket legend’s friends, Peter Maloney and David Evans, explained that Chappell’s foundation has raised millions for youth homelessness charities, but the man himself is doing it harder than he should.
‘Greg is a very proud man. He does it harder than he says,” Maloney said.
“The Chappell Foundation is run by Darshak Mehta and 100 percent of the money raised is distributed. They divide it annually so that at the end of each year they don’t leave any money and start over.
‘If you submit your name to a foundation, you have the right to get some money from it. But Greg didn’t take a dime out of it, even though he could have.
“I think that was the irony that he was the face of it and showed up at every function and raised all this money when he didn’t have much himself.
“Put it this way, we’ll probably get about $250,000 out of it, and it will improve its final years significantly.”
The former Aussie Test captain’s Go Fund Me page has already raised more than $82,000
“Normally at lunch we have a property card and you have eftpos machines. We didn’t have time to set one up, or at least for one event, which would have been quite taxing,” Maloney said.
“The quickest way to do this was a Go Fund Me page.”
Chappell hopes Australian cricket learns from his situation to take better care of players from the past who did not earn the same money as today’s stars.
“It’s just my friends realizing we weren’t getting much and just to make sure Judy and I were comfortable in retirement,” Chappell said.
‘To be honest, there are others from our era who are in more dire circumstances who could use help and I don’t think the game has done enough for players from that era. Especially in relation to the comparison with today’s time.
“I believe that the players who set the stage for what’s happening today should probably be recognized for the role they played in getting the game to where it is today.”
Chappell played 87 Test matches and captained Australia 48 times.
He retired from the sport in 1984 as the highest run-getter in Australian Test history (7,110), beating Sir Donald Bradman’s previous record (6,996).