Soccer players and work permits

By Cameron Carswell | 9 August 2005

The transfer of soccer players from club to club is a superb example of a truly international labour market - a look at any of the major clubs will show a squad composed of players of many different nationalities. There are, however, some curious limits placed on this by the UK government, which recently denied a work permit to a player intending to go on a loan spell to Liverpool Football Club.

Mark Gonzalez was refused a work permit based on the fact that he would not be one of the highest wage earners at the club and that his native country of Chile are not in the top seventy in the FIFA world rankings of national soccer sides. (They are currently 72nd.)

Quite why these regulations are in place is something of a mystery, but clearly the government thinks it knows better when it comes to the soccer transfer market than manager Rafa Benitez, who steered Liverpool to victory in the prestigious Champions League.

In addition to these irksome regulations, the government requires that when a player is being brought in from outside the EU, that there is no "comparable" player available inside the EU. Again this meddling is curious - is it the job of bureaucrats to decide where a player should come from when a club goes shopping?