FOOTBALL began to realise the danger to sport posed by Brexit yesterday when it was revealed that the Scottish Professional Football League are in talks with the English Premier League over their joint wish to keep free movement within Europe for professional footballers after March 29 next year.
The National has highlighted the danger to sport from Brexit several times, and the home club of the first city to declare for Leave, Sunderland, has been one of the worst affected, losing numerous EU-born players and not replacing them as it plummeted two leagues in successive seasons.
Proof that Brexit has already affected football came during the summer when the fall in the value of the pound against the Euro restricted transfer activity.
Tottenham Hotspur’s manager Mauricio Pochettino blamed Brexit, saying the drop of the pound against the Euro increased the cost of bringing players in from the EU by 30%.
The football authorities are pressing for players to have free movement because the UK Government’s insistence on ending freedom of movement will mean that football will have to treat EU-born players the way that it presently treats players from outside the EU.
Under this “quality threshold” system, imported players will either have to have played a certain number of internationals for their country or will require to be deemed of sufficient quality to play here by a specialist panel of experts.
Theoretically that could have meant that Celtic’s record signing Odsonne Edouard, bought by the Parkhead club for more than £8 million in the summer transfer window, would have needed approval by the panel as the 20-year-old born in French Guiana has not yet played a full international for France.
As a French citizen, however, Edouard was freely able to come on loan to Celtic from Paris St Germain before signing for the Scottish champions – he will also be able to stay in Scotland permanently thanks to Prime Minister Theresa May’s statement that EU citizens already living here will be able to stay on.
The football leagues want more guarantees, however. At any one time in recent seasons, up to a fifth of Scotland’s professional players have been EU imports and it would be fair to say that not all of them would have met the quality threshold.
Clubs have also been able to choose freely from the huge pool of talent across the European Union, while the English Premier League boasts that it has some of the best players in Europe in its ranks.
A recent example of EU freedom of movement was the signing of Miquel Nelom of the Netherlands by Hibs.
The club’s chief executive Leeann Dempster yesterday told the BBC that the deal could have taken up to three months had Nelom been treated like a non-EU national.
Dempster said the UK Government should look favourably upon football because of its place in British society.
She said: “I think you could definitely argue this, in terms of sporting excellence and where football is in the British psyche. I think you could also argue around the financial element in terms of what football contributes to the exchequer. There’s definitely a discussion to be had around it and I would hope football would be looked upon favourably.”
The House of Lords committee on Brexit looked into its effects on sport over the summer. Lord Jay, Chairman Committee, said: “The sports industry in the UK is a huge market. Many of our leagues and teams are internationally renowned brands and make a significant contribution both to the UK’s reputation overseas and to the national balance sheet. However the impact of Brexit on sport is an area that has often been overlooked in the melee of other issues raised since the UK decided to leave the EU.
“The evidence we received suggests that for many sports, the impact of Brexit could be extremely significant. Ending free movement from the EU could present both challenges and opportunities, but it is clear that we need a proper analysis and a plan for how it is managed.”
Some experts believe ending freedom of movement could benefit football here.
Professor Raymond Boyle from Glasgow University said: “Perhaps we can make rules that will be beneficial to the Scottish game in terms of talent we want to attract and retain. You also have to remember that the football sector sits within a whole range of other industries who are all knocking on the door trying to say we are the most important and we need to be prioritised.”
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