Kolpak imports in limbo with status set to be abolished
Special exemption for overseas players at risk Existing recruits can stay only until next year
Dozens of Kolpak players risk being barred from county cricket and the rugby union Premiership within 12 months, regardless of whether the UK leaves the European Union, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
When the UK leaves the EU, Kolpak players – those from abroad who do not count as overseas players – will be abolished. Existing Kolpak players would be allowed to remain under these terms during any transitional period negotiated between the UK and EU, which has been proposed to end in January 2021.
As soon as Brexit is complete, no new players will be able to sign under Kolpak terms. Existing Kolpak players would only be eligible in 2020 if they remain with their current clubs, said Rose Carey, an immigration lawyer from Charles Russell Speechlys. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, then no new Kolpak players would be able to sign from the day that the UK left the EU.
Yet even in the unlikely event of Brexit not going ahead, the future of Kolpak players is in doubt. The Cotonou Agreement – which allows citizens from 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to work in the EU if they have a valid work permit – expires in February. It has yet to be renewed.
Either if the Cotonou Agreement is not renewed, or the UK leaves the EU without negotiating an agreement allowing those from the nations who signed Cotonou to continue to work in the UK, Kolpak contracts would cease to be valid after the 2020 cricket season. Kolpak contracts in rugby union would cease to be valid either after this 2019-20 season or the next, which the proposed end-of-the-transition arrangement falls in the middle of.
This uncertainty leaves Kolpak players in limbo. Last season, 25 county cricketers played as Kolpaks, while 116 players in the rugby union Premiership in 2018-19 were registered as Kolpaks. The Rugby Football Union has written into its regulations that both players from the EU and Kolpaks will retain their status for the remainder of this season. It is working to determine what arrangements need to be put in place, including holding discussions with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
“The decision on who can work in the UK is a matter for government. Player registration rules sit with the RFU and we have confirmed that there will be no changes this season even if there is a ‘no deal’ Brexit,” an RFU spokesperson said. One option would be for the Premiership to increase the number of foreign players permitted per team from two. Otherwise squads could lose an average of almost 10 players each.
If counties can no longer sign Kolpak players, the England and Wales Cricket Board is considering increasing the number of overseas players permitted from one to two in the County Championship. One is also allowed in the One-day Cup, two in the Twenty20 Blast.
The Kolpak ruling – named after Slovakian handball player Maros Kolpak, who successfully argued that he should be free to move to a German club – was made in 2003 by the European Court of Justice.
British sports teams have used the rule to recruit extra talent from overseas, over and above the permitted number of overseas players.
In rugby, clubs have signed extra players from South Africa and Fiji,
Samoa and Tonga, while it has been used in cricket primarily to sign South Africans, supplemented by some Caribbean players. The ECB has always banned Kolpak players from playing international sport concurrently. Conversely, the RFU allows Kolpak players to play international rugby.
No firm decision will be made by either the RFU or the ECB until the situations with Brexit and Kolpak players are known. Some leading Kolpak players have sought, or obtained, guarantees that, in the event of Kolpaks being barred, their status would be transferred to being an overseas player.
But many players who have Kolpak contracts would be unlikely to be deemed good enough by their domestic teams to fulfil the current permitted number of overseas player slots.