Examination of Witness (Questions 72 -
79)
MS MARGARET
HODGE, MP
WEDNESDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2000
Chairman
72. Minister, you are very welcome. Perhaps
you might like to make an introductory statement to play us all
in.
(Ms Hodge) I think there is a muddle
in the public mind about the role that we play through the work
permit system because we only give work permits to footballers
who are non-British and non-EU international players. The reality
is that in the Premier and Football League you have now got about
seven per cent of players from the EU and less than two per cent
are non-EU and non-British nationals. I think when people get
worried about there being too many international players playing
in British football they do not distinguish and therefore they
are not clear as to the real powers that the Government has to
intervene. That is the first thing I want to say. The second thing
is that in determining policy around what are fair and appropriate
criteria for work permits for footballers we have listened very
carefully to all the football bodies and others who have got an
interest in the issue and we have had to balance quite carefully
two conflicting priorities. One is that everybody wants to see
a good game of football, so they want the best players there and
if the best players are international they want to have them and
that is the primary interest coming from clubs particularly in
the Premier League. Another good point is that one way to grow
home talent is to have good role models of international players
who can raise the quality of the game in a particular club. That
is on the one side. On the other side you do want to grow home
talent and you do want to provide footballing opportunities for
our own people. So we have tried to balance that. I think we have
done that quite successfully. When I first came into office—you
will laugh at this, Derek—I was given my list of responsibilities
and among them was work permits and I did think that would be
pretty straightforward and pretty bureaucratic and I would not
have to spend a lot of time on that. I very quickly found in the
early days of being in office that my postbag was rather fuller
of letters from MPs and others with enquiries from the press around
the issue of work permits for footballers. I looked at the criteria
that we had and I think they were not very clear. They tended
to be a bit arbitrary and partial and neither I nor you could
understand why one player was given a work permit and another
one was not. So what we tried to do in reviewing the criteria
for work permits for footballers was to come forward with transparent,
clear, consistent criteria and I think we have achieved that.
The other thing we have achieved is we have really speeded up
the system. Again, under the old system that we inherited, it
took about 26 days to deal with an application for a work permit
for a footballer; now the average is seven and a half days and
if there is an appeal it goes up to 13, but that is a fantastically
better and speedier system and I think that is in the interests
of everybody, i.e. the individual, the club and the general public.
73. Thank you very much indeed. Certainly some
of the evidence from the players has been that they were very
concerned that the July change of last year had made the regulations
a lot more lax and so a lot more foreign players were going to
come in. They gave us something of an alarming statistic, which
is that at the beginning of this season 59 per cent of the players
starting matches in the Premier Division were foreign. The statistics
you gave us were very much more balanced and I am sure that they
are absolutely right. It was quite alarming that at the beginning
of the season in the Premier Division so many foreign players
were beginning matches.
(Ms Hodge) I do not recognise those statistics from
the statistics that we have given you and the ones that I am familiar
with. I would be interested to know where you got those figures
from. The second thing to say is that I think when they talk about
foreign players they are talking about EU players as well as international
players.
74. They are talking about non-UK players?
(Ms Hodge) Yes, and again I have to make the point
that there is freedom of movement within the European Community
and therefore certainly since the Bosman judgment, in particular,
there is really little control that the British Government can
have on clubs playing EU players. The figures I have are for the
English Premier League: 20 clubs, 1,213 players, of whom there
are 125 EEA players, which is about 10.3 per cent and current
work permit players, that is international players, 33 per cent,
2.7 per cent. If you average it out between the Premier and the
Football League it drops a bit because there are more in the Premier
League. I do not quite recognise your figures. We have talked
a lot to all the football bodies. There is no evidence that the
change in the criteria has led to a massive influx of international
players. There has undoubtedly been a steady growth—and
I keep saying this, it is still less than two per cent—in
the number of international players coming to play football in
the UK. I think that is partly because there is more money around
in the system partly from the television rights that people are
getting. I think the Bosman judgment has made a difference
to the number of EEA players that the clubs are playing. I do
not think it is a function of the work permit criteria. I think
the plus we have had from the review, which is clarity, consistency,
speed and openness, are all to the good. We dropped some criteria.
We want to ensure that those international players who come to
play in the UK are top of their profession. So we have kept in
the criteria that measure of quality, which is that you have to
have played in 75 per cent of your international matches over
the past two years and it depends where your club comes in the
FIFA rankings and we currently have a cut off point of 70. What
we dropped were criteria that we did not think were appropriate.
One was that on every single application there was consultation
with the football bodies and I think that led to inconsistency
and incoherence in decision making and I think having these clear
criteria is neater. It is just the clarity that we have bought
in and the consistency. The other one we dropped was that there
was an unspoken but pretty consistent salary level implication
in the criteria. I did not think that was a very good criterion
because it hiked up salaries here and in hiking up salaries you
then price up the price of tickets and that damaged the interests
of the fans and I thought there were other ways in which we could
measure quality and excellence without necessarily looking at
the salary levels.
75. They were most concerned that now that you
are letting them come in for the whole of the contract the work
permit applies to the whole of the contract rather than just for
a year. The players were claiming that 30 to 40 per cent of players
coming in actually failed the post-entry checks and this seemed
to suggest that a far larger body than those who are making a
contribution at the highest level were being allowed in.
(Ms Hodge) You measure their contribution by what
they have done before they come into the UK. Our view on the post-entry
checks was that it was burdensome, very bureaucratic, took time,
cost money to everybody, both to the Government and to the football
clubs. If a club chooses after a year or so it does not want to
play somebody it is up to them to deal with that, but it was not
our job to do the club's job for them and take away the work permit
after a year when the club had signed them up to a three-year
contract, for example. I think it is partly to do away with unnecessary
regulatory burden and also to put the onus on the clubs to decide
whether or not they wanted to play somebody that we took that
decision.
76. Certainly all the evidence given to us points
to the fact that it really was the Bosman Ruling which
preceded quite a substantial rise in the number of non-UK players.
Is there that much point in worrying too much about those who
come from outside the European economic area?
(Ms Hodge) You are leading me in that question and
I tend to agree with you. When you talk about non-Brits playing
in British football you are talking about European players playing
in British football. There are a far broader proportion of those
who are engaged. Arsenal happens to be the club I support, although
never let it be said. I know I dare not say it in this context,
but Kanu brings something to the game or, if you think of the
Moroccan, Chippo who is in Coventry brings something to the game.
I think the quality threshold that we have set in relation to
work permits enables people to come in who will add to the game
and therefore add to the interests that fans have in watching
the game and I think also probably do something about raising
the quality of the game and therefore raising the aspirations
and quality of the young people who we are trying to bring up.
Mr Brady
77. Minister, we have had evidence from players,
bodies and from the governing bodies of the sport which has suggested
there is widespread concern about the impact which the number
of overseas players taken together is having on the ability to
bring on domestic footballing talent. We have also heard that
there is widespread concern in other Member States about this
and I understand there has been contact between UEFA and the European
Commission on this matter. Is that something the British Government
is party to?
(Ms Hodge) Certainly if there are discussions European-wide
on trying to tackle the Bosman judgment we would be involved
in that. It is interesting that other countries in Europe, e.g.
Germany and Sweden, determine their work permit criteria simply
on the say so of the football bodies. There is no government involvement
in that at all. Spain has a quota system. Holland and Belgium
use salary as a criterion for determining who they allow in or
not to play. There are assertions in the UK that we have more
international players than elsewhere. There is very little proper
data around, as you have probably found during the course of your
inquiry, but from what we can find probably Spain, Germany, Italy
and Holland have more international players than we do. If there
is an attempt European-wide to do something about it and to get
engaged in a conversation we will. We are always reviewing. We
will listen to what you say and we will have regard to that. I
honestly think that the criteria we established last year are
better than what happened before. We also have this very independent
appeal mechanism where we have the football bodies represented
and a number of experts as well and they can very swiftly hear
an appeal if a club feels aggrieved about a decision we have taken
around a particular work permit. So we have got a really objective
consistent system in place now.
78. If there is widespread support to be found
in other Member States to look at ways in which professional sports
and particularly football might be taken outside the normal rules
of European employment law then that is something the British
Government would be prepared to explore, is it?
(Ms Hodge) We will talk, but I think it is incredibly
difficult given the whole freedom of labour within Europe. I honestly
think the answer is we need to grow better our home talent and
focus our efforts on that rather than trying to constrain the
game by setting up barriers to the freedom of labour.
79. And in that context might it be possible
that one way of reducing the impact of the Bosman Ruling
might be to allow quotas for young players who have been trained
within a particular country?
(Ms Hodge) The Bosman Ruling ruled out quotas,
that was the whole point of it, it became illegal to have a quota.
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