On June 23, 2016, in a referendum, 51.9 % votes were obtained from the United Kingdom electorate with a favor to leave the European Union. According to the Treaty of European Union, a member state has the right to withdraw from the European Union. The Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union was invoked by the government of Britain on March 29, 2017. The United Kingdom has to leave the European Union on March 29, 2019(Green et al. 2016).The Brexit will have serious impacts on the politics of the country, financial market, economy of Britain. Sports will be no exception to the impact of Brexit. The sports of England as well as sports played in the European Union will be impacted by Brexit. Sports like football, Polo, cricket and rugby will have to face serious consequences after Brexit. The English Premier League will be affected severely as the cosmopolitan nature of the league and the domestic and global appeal will be affected if foreign players are restricted to play in the league. The effects that Brexit will have on the sports industry of the United Kingdom are discussed below (Dorling 2016).
So far, Sportsmen and women from the European Union (EU) did not require a work permit to practice sports in the United Kingdom unlike the case of non-European citizens because of the principle of freedom of movement. This principle of freedom of movement has been of paramount importance for the English football. The criteria for players from non-European countries to get work permit in the United Kingdom are stringent. Non- European players must play in high percentage of matches for their national team before they can find a work permit to play in the United Kingdom. Martial, Morgan Schneiderlin, N’Golo Kanté and Yohan Cabaye are some of the players who have not played more than 45 % of matches in France since June 2014 and thus would not be able to obtain work permit in the United Kingdom (Girginov 2017).
Without the principle of freedom of movement, more than 100 Premier League players would have failed to gain the work permit of the United Kingdom. When players like Dimitri Payet, N’Golo Kante , Anthony Martial, Dimitri Payet joined the Premier League, they were not players of international repute, but the principle of freedom of movement enabled them to receive work permit and play for the Premier League, same is the case with footballers from South America like Diego Costa and Philippe Coutinho who gained citizenship of Europe before starting to play in England and thus bypassed the stringent process to obtain work permit. The executive chairman of the Premier League in association with the 20 clubs of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore expressed their favor of Remain because the competitiveness of the Premier League will be compromised to a great extent unless Britain remains within the European Union (EU) (Campos 2016).
The eminent members of different sporting bodies were intimidated by the Brexit referendum and feared that the votes obtained in favor of Britain to leave the European Union, will change the entire landscape of sports in Britain. A lot of potential changes would require implementation. The eminent personalities of sports feared that Brexit will snatch the freedom of the European nationals to practice sports in the United Kingdom. The decision makers of the sporting bodies will have to make the tough decision if they will develop new rules for European nationals after Brexit or the European nationals will fit into the rules before Brexit (Lennox and Shepherd 2017). The eminent members of the Premier League anticipated that Brexit would have the drawback of not including rising talented players in the Premier League, because only players of high caliber who belong to the EU countries of high FIFA rank could be included in the Premier League. Thus transfer fees and wages of the eminent players of the European Union will increase and this high cost will have to be incurred by the clubs of Premier League (Kierzenkowski et al. 2016). It can be argued that some people from Britain had a different opinion. They were of the opinion that Brexit will make the English football more prominent in the global sports if foreign footballers are dismissed from the top leagues and a nationality restriction is imposed. There were people of the opinion that Leave vote will fulfil the dreams of chairmen of Football Association to introduce quotas for English footballers which was not possible so far due to the stringent European Law. If the European Law ceases to apply in the United Kingdom, restriction could be imposed on foreign players by the organizers of sports competition (Lechner 2015).
There are matters which demand more immediate concerns. Teenage players from the European Union below the age of 21 who were affiliated to any club of the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period of 36 months or 3 entire seasons were considered as players who were homegrown irrespective of their nationality and age. Brexit would mean absence of these teenage players of European Union in the Premier League. Under-18 teams of the Premier League have the presence of 70 kids. The strategy adopted by the football in the United Kingdom is to invest in young players. This is a high-reward and low risk strategy for talent acquisition and if the United Kingdom waits for two years in order to sign these players, the pipeline of talent of the Premier League clubs would be affected (Alapartanen and Kelly 2016).
The Brexit effect will not only impact football. According to Cotonou Agreement and Kolpak Ruling 2003, the same rights as the players of European Union are enjoyed by the players of Pacific Group of States (ACP), Caribbean and Africa. This agreement enabled the England and Wales Cricket Board to sign cricketers at a cheaper rate from countries like Africa. Many players from South Africa, Caribbean and Pacific islands play in the domestic Leagues of England particularly in cricket and rugby union. Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen are eminent players born in South Africa and 139 tests that were held in between 2014 to 2015 were played by England with the players born in South Africa. Mike Catt and Manu Tuilagi are among some of the eminent players who are played in the English rugby union team and this clearly reflected the high dependency that the rugby team had on players born in foreign countries(Lawless and Morgenroth 2016).Thus, eminent sports authorities feared that the Kolpak agreement would not be valid after Brexit and thus players from Pacific Group of States (ACP), Caribbean and Africa would be considered as foreign players after Britain decides to leave EU (Cho and Kim 2017). The premiership has been enhanced because of the 70 Kolpak players and the sponsors and viewers could enjoy the cosmopolitan nature of the Premiership which made it attractive. According to some sports management group, the favorable model of Premiership is to have a combination of international players and players from the home country. However many people presented a contradictory opinion that the Brexit will lead to the development of players from the United Kingdom (James 2017).
Before Brexit referendum was passed, according to the Bosman Ruling, from the month of May to September, players from Argentina who had grandparents with European Citizenship got an opportunity to play polo in the English season. However, David Wood, CEO of the Hurlingham Polo Association was of the opinion that Brexit might not impact the players of international repute whose presence would be vital in the main tournaments of Polo; however Brexit will adversely affect handicapped players from foreign countries who have European grandparents (Hunt and Wheeler 2016).
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the rule of foreign player was not applicable to the players from European Union or from countries like Fiji, Tonga, South Africa and Samoa as these countries have signed association agreement with the European Union. This agreement allows the players from these countries to enjoy the same freedom of movement as enjoyed by the players from member countries of European Union. The Brexit will make it tough for players of these countries to gain work permit to practice sports in the United Kingdom and these players will have a chance to join sports team of France or Italy. Football is the sports that will be most affected. The influx of youth players from European Union is under-18 Premier league was a low investment talent acquisition strategy adopted by Britain which will be adversely affected. The transfer and wages expense to sign players of international repute would increase cost of the clubs of Premier League. Besides football, rugby, cricket and polo will also be affected. However the quota of British players would increase in these teams.
Reference Lists
Alapartanen, N. and Kelly, D., 2016. Understanding the Implications of the Sporting Industry in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Campos, N.F., 2016. Football and Brexit: how freedom of movement has affected England’s chances of winning Euro 2016. LSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) Blog.
Cho, S. and Kim, K.H., 2017. Free trade agreements, sporting goods and playing talent. Routledge Handbook of International Sport Business.
Dorling, D., 2016. Brexit: the decision of a divided country.
Girginov, V., 2017. UK: England—National Governing Bodies of Sport and Government Agencies. In Sport Policy Systems and Sport Federations (pp. 283-302). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Green, S., Gregory, C., Reeves, M., Cowan, J.K., Demetriou, O., Koch, I., Carrithers, M., Andersson, R., Gingrich, A., Macdonald, S. and Açiksöz, S.C., 2016. Brexit Referendum: first reactions from anthropology. Social Anthropology, 24(4), pp.478-502.
Hunt, A. and Wheeler, B., 2016. Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU. BBC News, 24.
James, M., 2017. Sports law. Springer.
Kierzenkowski, R., Pain, N., Rusticelli, E. and Zwart, S., 2016. The Economic Consequences of Brexit.
Lawless, M. and Morgenroth, E., 2016. The Product and Sector Level impact of a hard Brexit across the EU. ESRI, WP, (550).
Lechner, M., 2015. Sports, exercise, and labor market outcomes. IZA World of Labor.
Lennox, R. and Shepherd, N., 2017. Debating Brexit: Why Now and What Next?. The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice, pp.1-8.
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