Keir Radnedge Brexit means evolution
As the UK awoke on the morning of Saturday, February 1, apparently nothing had changed. The trains ran; cars, buses and lorries converged in the usual traffic jams; planes took off and landed.
Britain had not fallen off the edge of Europe into the Atlantic Ocean. Brexit had happened and the transitional countdown was inexorably under way.
As for daily life, so also for sport in general – and football in particular.
This prospect has, over the past three years since the referendum, fascinated many directors and officials in other major western European countries and their leagues. They consider Brexit a massive own goal for the Premier League and believe they can cream off a slice of the TV and sponsorship action. Along the way they would keep their own star players at home and strike back at English clubs in the Champions and Europa Leagues.
The vultures, however, are likely to be disappointed.
One certain point for British international football is Brexit is irrelevant. That means not only for England but also Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the four regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Only half the 55-strong membership of UEFA are European Union countries, so the status of the British home nations is no different to those.
The same goes for the clubs. World Cup, European Championship, Nations League, Champions League, Europa League? No change.
But the effect on the domestic game is far more complex.
The four major players are the government (national strategy), the Football Association (governing all English football), the Premier League (most high-profile operation of its kind in the world) and the Football League (the three lower professional divisions). Between them they must devise regulations to cope with legislation.
Until now, free movement of labour within the European Union has opened the UK football market to anyone holding an EU passport. This also benefited players from Africa and South America who acquired EU citizenship through residency elsewhere or family roots. It also included so-called “Kolpak” citizens from countries adhering to an EU Association Agreement which grants the same right to freedom of work and movement.
But after this year every foreign footballer will need a work permit, the precise terms of which have yet to be agreed.
Until now, work permits have been granted to non-EU players who have appeared in a minimum percentage of their country’s competitive games over the previous two years. The number of matches varies according to the country’s place in the FIFA rankings, with adjustments for age, injury and suspension.
If a player fails these criteria then exceptions can be made on the basis of assessment as a special talent.
Immigration was a key factor in the
Brexit vote. Boris Johnson wants to shut out low-wage, unskilled immigrants, so government ministers have proposed a minimum annual pay rate of £30,000 for a work permit.
That will not bother football. Premier League players earn an average of £3million a year; Football League players earn much less but still way above the notional minimum. Premier clubs target established, outstanding foreign players and will continue to do so.
However, while the Premier League wants to maintain the status quo, so the FA sees Brexit as an opportunity to enforce greater opportunities for young English players.
The plight of Phil Foden is a perfect example of the FA’s concern: a gifted member of England’s under-17 world champions in 2017 yet still only a bitpart player at Manchester City. A talent going to waste.
Foden’s plight explains why such as Jadon Sancho headed to Borussia Dortmund in Germany for the chance to play regular first-team football.
While the Premier League wants work permits to be granted virtually automatically, the FA wants to see the number of home-grown players in a 25-man squad raised from eight to 12.
They will meet somewhere in the middle. Maybe 10 by 2022 and a promise of further negotiations about an increase to 12 by 2025. Who knows? This is, after all, Brexit under discussion in which the only certainty is uncertainty.
The one English football sector which may have to rethink its model is the Football League, and the clubs in the third and fourth tiers in particular, .
The market of low-level, free-market
After this year every foreign footballer will need a work permit, the precise terms of which have yet to be agreed
EU players will dry up. Also, from next year English clubs will not be able to sign foreign players that are aged 16 and 17 as FIFA rules stipulate they must be 18.
The strongest card held by club owners is the knowledge, shared by the government and the FA, that the Premier League is one of the country’s most popular worldwide exports.
It does not compare in value to the military, finance or gambling industries, but it is one of the UK’s best-known international brands. Self-protection is in everyone’s interests; more so now than ever. Which is bad news for the vultures across the English Channel.
Indeed, not only may the Premier League maintain its primacy, it could become even richer if the easing of investment controls make it easier for Arab, Chinese and American operators to throw ever more zillions of pounds and dollars at the English game...and pay ever more astronomical transfer fees and wages.