Why the United Kingdom Should Look to Switzerland's Immigration System to Protect the English Premier League After Brexit
| Publication year | 2021 |
Why the United Kingdom Should Look to Switzerland's Immigration System to Protect the English Premier League After Brexit
Fraser Goodlad
In June 2016, Richard Scudamore, the English Premier League's (EPL) Executive Chairman from 2014 to 2018, announced that all twenty EPL clubs favored remaining in the European Union (EU).1 Scudamore stated, "There is an openness about the Premier League which I think it would be completely incongruous if we were to take the opposite position [being in favor of Brexit]. We would just be . . . respected less around the world."2
After the result of the United Kingdom's vote to leave the EU, EPL clubs made it clear to England's national soccer federation, the Football Association (FA), that the clubs do not plan to reduce the number of foreign players they sign after Brexit.3 The EPL clubs worry that reducing the number of foreign players they sign will be detrimental to their ability to win matches in elite European competitions and lessen the EPL's attractiveness to television broadcasters.4
The FA, in divergence with the EPL, sees Brexit as an opportunity to reduce the number of players from overseas in the EPL.5 "[H]omegrown" players accounted for approximately forty percent of the EPL clubs' squads in the 2018/19 season.6 The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) ascribes homegrown status to players whom were registered with a single club in that particular state for three seasons between the ages of fifteen and twenty one.7 The FA wants to curb imports from abroad to increase the proportion of
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English players playing in the EPL.8 The FA believes that if a higher proportion of homegrown players are able to play in the EPL, the English national team will benefit from the larger pool of players gaining experience in England's top tier of soccer.9 Martin Glenn, the FA's Chief Executive, proposed cutting the maximum number of foreign players in a twenty-five person squad from seventeen down to twelve.10 The EPL, on the other hand, wants to use Brexit as a chance to widen its net and secure the services of talented players from across the globe who are restricted by the current immigration system.11
The EPL is a major player in the U.K. economy, and allowing EPL clubs to attract the world's most exciting talent is pivotal if the EPL is to maintain its dominant global status after Brexit.12 In the 2016/17 season, the twenty EPL clubs generated around $4.4 billion in tax revenue and contributed around $10 billion to the British economy.13 As the EPL stands at this post-Brexit crossroads, it can either follow the path of openness exemplified by the Swiss immigration system or the more insular path of prioritizing homegrown players, exemplified by the Russian immigration system. Approaches adopted by Switzerland and Russia demonstrate vastly differing relationships with the European Union. To illustrate the difference between these two approaches, this Comment analyzes the Swiss and Russian immigration systems with specific emphasis on the rules applying to soccer players in each state.
In Section I, this Comment explains the backdrop of lex sportiva in the European Union and how Brexit will affect the EPL. Section II discusses immigration law in the United Kingdom and European Union, Switzerland, and Russia. Section III focuses specifically on the laws and rules that national soccer federations and governments apply to soccer players in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Russia. Section IV describes how the Swiss model of immigration with regard to soccer players is more workable than the Russian model and will best preserve the EPL's position of global dominance.
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Sports are hugely influential both socially and economically in Europe. The EPL is at the apex of all major sports and sports leagues in Europe. The EPL's economic dominance is unparalleled.14 Accordingly, the EPL and the other major sports leagues across Europe are regulated and administrated by a number of national and international organizations. In soccer, each nation has a national federation and all of the national federations are members of the regional federation for Europe, UEFA.15 The regional federations throughout the world are members of the global soccer federation, FIFA.16 Soccer clubs and national federations in Europe are under the jurisdiction of their national laws, EU law (known as lex sportiva as it applies to sports), and Swiss law (because UEFA and FIFA are headquartered in Switzerland).17 Now that the United Kingdom has left the European Union, the governance of possibly the best-known sports league in the world is now subject to change. The next section explains the backdrop to the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union as it applies to soccer.
A. The Importance of the English Premier League to the United Kingdom's Economy
The EPL is a financial behemoth.18 The EPL entered into television contracts worth around $12 billion in 2019 for the next three seasons.19 The twenty clubs in the EPL recorded revenues of around $6.3 billion in 2017/18.20 In 2017/18, the clubs in the EPL paid $3.7 billion in wages.21 The EPL has financial dominance over all of its rival leagues in Europe.22 In 2017/18, the EPL's closest competitors were La Liga in Spain and the Bundesliga in Germany.23 Spain's
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top two divisions recorded combined revenues of around $5.2 billion, over $1 billion less than England's top division.24 Germany's top two divisions also lagged behind the EPL and posted similar revenues of around $5.2 billion.25
The top European leagues court a global audience.26 In stark comparison, the insular Russian Premier League (RPL) struggles to compete with its European rivals.27 For comparison, the television rights for the RPL in 2016 were worth just $36 million, which is less than one percent of the annual deal that the EPL signed for its television rights.28 The relatively small Swiss Raiffeisen Super League (RSL) secured a new television rights package in 2016 worth $163.2 million over four years, which represented a seventy percent jump from its previous television rights arrangement.29
In the 2016/17 season, the twenty EPL clubs generated around $4.4 billion in tax revenue and contributed around $10 billion to the British economy.30 Compared to three years before, the tax yield in the 2016/17 season represented an increase of almost fifty percent and doubled the gross value added to the economy from three years prior.31 EPL players paid around $1.4 billion in personal taxes.32 EPL clubs support the equivalent of 100,000 full time jobs, and over 686,000 visitors come from overseas every year to visit EPL clubs.33 Undoubtedly, the EPL is a worldwide sporting brand and a massive contributor to the U.K. economy.
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B. Soccer's Governing Bodies
The European model of sports is a monopolistic pyramid.34 The hierarchical structure of European sports is arranged with a global federation at its apex.35 Under the global federation is a European federation.36 Underneath the European federation is each state's national federation.37 These federations to work cohesively to manage their sports.38 The federations implement rules of competition, integrity, safety, and promotion amongst other rules.39 In addition to the rules of competition, federations implement strategies to maximize the economic interests of their sports and enter into contracts to sell merchandise, tickets, hospitality packages, and broadcasting rights for their sporting events.40 Needless to say, the federations have a broad and crucial role in ensuring functioning of their sports and the federations' compliance with both national and EU laws.
At the summit of soccer's hierarchical pyramid sits the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), which operates under Swiss law.41 FIFA was founded in 1904 and its headquarters are in Zurich, Switzerland.42 FIFA is responsible for passing rules for soccer that apply throughout the world, describing its statutes as "the constitution of FIFA and world football."43 Under FIFA sits the European federation, UEFA. UEFA organizes European competitions and represents European national federations.44 Like FIFA, UEFA is headquartered in Switzerland.45 The United Kingdom has national soccer federations in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.46 England's national federation is called the FA. The FA
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controls the England national team as well as club competitions throughout England.47
The English league system for clubs is a pyramid structure with promotion and relegation between the leagues. This pyramid system is foreign to American sports but is ubiquitous across the soccer leagues of Europe.48 Promotion and relegation are devices that increase the effective competition among teams.49 Theoretically, a small amateur club team could be promoted season after season and eventually end up in the EPL, assuming it meets the FA's standards required for stadia and infrastructure at each level of the pyramid. In England there are four professional soccer leagues.50 The EPL is the top division, the Championship is the second division, League 1 is the third division, and League 2 is the fourth division.51 Underneath League is myriad regional semi-professional leagues that form a pyramid at the tip of which is the promised land of professional soccer.52 The English system today has a wealth of examples of teams that have made the long journey up the ladder of English football: Bournemouth was relegated into League 2 (the fourth professional division) in 2008 and faced debts of around $8 million,53 but just ten years later the club finished 12th in the EPL and recorded a...
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