JamesMuenchen wrote:Arborbridge wrote:JamesMuenchen wrote:Seeing as embittered Remainers have managed to turn the discussion to Boris and Brexit, as usual, can anyone explain how UK teams are able to play in Europe now anyway?
That question is so weird that it does not deserve an answer. I can only hope you were having a larff.
Arb.
No, it's a serious question that I can't find an answer to
There is a lot of talk in the press that British bands will struggle to perform in the EU as there was no agreement on a visa waiver for them. (To go on tour they now need to get working visas for all the band and support staff for each individual EU country on the tour.)
So was there a visa waiver agreement for football clubs?
I know the new rules regarding transfers of players, but this is different.
I have also tried and failed to find the answer. I suspect the position is as follows:
Many players in the EPL will already have EU passports - even some who are nominally South American. For them, playing in the EU or EEA is no issue. However there are plenty of countries whose teams play in UEFA competitions who are not in the EU or EEA, and both those with EU passports and most other players will already have issues there. I suspect they need temporary working visas for matches in these countries, and that this will be the case with non-EU players from the UK now. I also suspect that there are inter-governmental channels to try to make sure that the path is smoothed for such cases. There will be limits on the number of days that the players can work in these countries, but the number of matches we're talking about will mean visits total well under 60 days in most cases (although I can see an issue with, say world cups, but I would anticipate some sort of government assistance with big residential tournaments).
Matters of the expense of doing so and the possibility of delays in receiving visas, are probably less of an issue to EPL clubs than they are for many other sports.
DM