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Cricket Ireland can confirm that the UK Home Office will be changing the Immigration Rules for Overseas Players in club cricket for the 2017 season.
Cricket Ireland can confirm that the UK Home Office will be changing the Immigration Rules for Overseas Players in club cricket for the 2017 season.

A tightening of the 2016 regulations now means that Tier Five cricketers will only be eligible to play in the top division of the NCU and NWCU league structures. Standard Visitor Visa holders, who intend to play club cricket, will only be able to play for clubs who play below the top division of the NCU and NWCU league structures.
These new regulations have come directly from the Home Office The rationale behind this move is Tier 5 players are contracted/professional cricketers, with FC experience, coaching credentials etc., and SVV holders are non-professional cricketers i.e. amateurs and in other words should not be paid to play cricket. This interpretation hasn’t changed from previous years, it is merely that the need to better police the process is now required. The Home Office has conceded that there may be occasions when clubs with the differing types of players (Tier 5 & SVV) will play against each other e.g. in cups but for “bread and butter” cricket, i.e. league cricket, the two types of visa holder should be playing in separate leagues.

The reasons for introducing this requirement is that some clubs across the UK have ignored these regulations in previous years. In a number of cases, clubs have declared professional players as amateurs, which has allowed the player entry clearance on a Sports Visitor Visa, and then the club has paid the player in an unofficial capacity. This is contrary to the terms of such visas, hence the changes that are being introduced from 2017.

Simon Dyke, Cricket Operations Manager for Cricket Ireland, commented: “We understand that the Home Office has also spoken to ECB about this, albeit the ECB have a much larger pool of leagues to roll this requirement out to. We are, however, already aware that clubs in England have had to make alternative arrangements regarding incoming players, as a result of this change of regulation.

“Two other points to note are that, firstly, ECB regulations don’t apply in NCU and NWCU, given that Northern Ireland falls outside of their jurisdiction.

“Secondly, clubs should never be signing or announcing the signing of players until the Home Office’s Immigration Rules for that season are signed off and published – for the very reason that any changes in regulations might materially affect a player or club’s rights. The immigration rules that are published each year only apply for that year, thus the need to wait until the new regulations are published for the following year. We are currently waiting for the Home Office to sign off on the 2017 immigration rules and, as such, no club should have confirmed any contractual arrangements with a player yet.
“Whilst the timelines are not ideal for this season, it has also been unavoidable, given the need for absolute clarity.”

The immigration rules for the 2017 season will be published in due course.

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