Post-Brexit UK labor laws make Premier League's rich even richer

The English Premier League is the most-watched and among the most moneyed sporting competitions on the planet, watched by 4.7 billion people a year.[1] As much as a tenth of the world’s population supports Manchester United alone.[2] The combined revenues of the twenty clubs that comprise the current iteration of the Premier League encompassed £4.5 billion in the 2019/2020 season – this in what was a markedly subpar year for the league, thanks to the COVID crisis.[3]

The effect on the league’s on-field product with Brexit finally taking effect at the end of 2020 remains to be seen. One result of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union was to tighten the rules regarding young players transferring from EU countries to the Premier League, including a ban on foreign players under 18 years of age signing with teams in the top four tiers of English soccer.[4] While that rules out the type of signing seen in the past – Arsenal’s recruitment of 16-year-old Cesc Fabregas in 2003 is one of the best examples – it also means that young British talent could be afforded a greater chance to demonstrate its worth on the field, with less competition from up-and-coming overseas players[5]

For of-age players trying to shift from the EU to the UK, the system is now based on a complex calculation of points, taking into account several factors that make it more likely for established players to be granted a work permit.[6]

This change likely skews the playing field toward wealthy, successful clubs, by ensuring that the players coming to the UK are already highly qualified and successful and making it far more difficult for smaller clubs in the UK to raid their continental equivalents for unproven but potentially talented players.[7] What’s more, it further exaggerates the value of English players on the transfer market, which has long been artificially inflated by Premier League rules, mandating that teams have a certain number of “home-grown” players in their 25-man squad at a given time.[8] Finally, the wealthiest clubs have yet another leg up on the competition thanks to the “connected clubs” loophole, which allows multiple ownership of “feeder clubs” in the EU, where young players can be placed to gain sufficient points toward a work permit and effectively allow the owners of these networks to “park” them until they are 18 and qualified for a move to the Premier League.[9]

One of the consequences of the Premier League’s global popularity has been the influx of wealthy foreign ownership at some clubs, which tilts the competition for top talent strongly in favor of those with nearly limitless resources to spend on transfer fees and ensures their ability to create “super-teams” laden with the best players available.[10] Experts on the game describe much of this new ownership as “sportswashing,” a way for wealthy actors with  international reputations for human rights abuses and corruption to “launder a reputation, to gloss a human rights records, to wash a little blood away.”[11]

This phenomenon isn’t confined to the UK, but it is particularly prominent in the Premier League – Manchester City is currently owned by the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates[12], which has been accused of human rights abuses by Amnesty International.[13] Chelsea is owned by a Russian oil tycoon with close ties to Vladimir Putin.[14] And just this month, Newcastle was purchased by the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia,[15] a state similarly chastised by Amnesty International for repeated human rights abuses.[16] Thanks to Brexit, those investments by ethically dubious foreign actors appear to be safer than ever.

Jonathan Gold is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLV.

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.
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[1] See Playing the game: The soft power of sport, British Council, (Oct. 2015), https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight/insight-articles/playing-game-soft-power-sport (last visited Oct. 16, 2021).

[2] See id.

[3] See Press Release, Deloitte UK, Premier League club revenues fall – for the first time ever – to cause the largest pre-tax loss in Premier League History (Jun. 15, 2021), https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/press-releases/articles/premier-league-club-revenues-fall-for-the-first-time-ever.html.

See [4] Ed Aarons, What does Brexit mean for the future of British football?, The Observer (Jan. 21, 2021), https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jan/24/what-does-brexit-mean-for-the-future-of-british-football.

[5] See id.

[6] See Paul Macdonald, How Brexit is impacting Premier League recruitment, Football Transfers (May 19, 2021), https://www.footballtransfers.com/en/transfer-news/it-serie-a/2021/03/how-brexit-is-impacting-premier-league-recruitment.

[7] See id.

[8] See Why are English footballers so expensive?, BBC Newsround (Jul. 13, 2015), https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/33507165.

[9] See How will Brexit rules affect the Premier League?, AFP (Dec. 23, 2020), https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201223-how-will-brexit-rules-affect-the-premier-league.

[10] See, e.g., Russian businessman buys Chelsea, BBC (Jul. 2, 2003), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3036838.stm, Louise Armitstead, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan has a deep love of sport and deeper pockets, The Telegraph (Sept. 2, 2008), https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-city/2664795/Sheikh-Mansour-bin-Zayed-Al-Nahyan-has-a-deep-love-of-sport-and-deeper-pockets-Football.html, George Caulkin, Newcastle’s Saudia Arabia-backed takeover completed to end Ashley’s 14-year reign, The Athletic (Oct. 10, 2021), https://theathletic.com/news/newcastles-saudi-arabia-backed-takeover-completed/78ACTsk9faaB/.

[11] See Barney Ronay, Sportswashing and the tangled web of Europe's biggest clubs, The Guardian (Feb. 15, 2019), https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/feb/15/sportswashing-europes-biggest-clubs-champions-league-owners-sponsors-uefa.

[12] See List of cabinet members of the UAE, UAECabinet.ae, https://uaecabinet.ae/en/cabinet-members (last retrieved Oct. 16, 2021).

[13] See United Arab Emirates 2020, Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/united-arab-emirates/report-united-arab-emirates/ (last visited Oct. 16, 2021).

[14] See Guy Faulconbridge, Russia's Abramovich denies buying Chelsea for Putin, court hears, Reuters (Jul. 28, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/russian-billionaires-vs-british-writer-court-battle-begins-over-putin-book-2021-07-27/.

[15] See Newcastle United takeover: Who are the new owners of the Tyneside club?, Sky News (Oct. 8, 2021), https://news.sky.com/story/newcastle-united-takeover-who-are-the-new-owners-of-the-tyneside-club-12429090.

[16] See Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/saudi-arabia/ (last visited Oct. 16, 2021).