EU and Koplak players

[Statto]

Proposals outlined in this months Wisden Cricketer
All counties put an annual sum (believed to be £50000) into a central pot. Where this money is diverted from isnt said, but it cant come from contracts as they have already been signed this year. This sum may change in future years but at the moment I think there is a risk it could come out of academy spending which may well do more harm than good.
This money would then be re-distributed according to:

• No. of England players the county has produced. But it doesnt say how far back they will go (5yrs?, 10yrs?)
• No. of U23 England qualified players contracted by the county. Note contracted, not playing for, the county, so is this raising their standards as these players can then play as a pro in club cricket.
• No. of England qualified contracted players who play in the CC or NL. Getting better, although it is unclear wether it is played 1 game or 50% or however many, as counties shouldnt be rewarded fo giving someone "a" game as its hardly a development.
• Level of qualification of coaching staff. Reasonable suggestion, although the big counties will always win on this with their deeper pockets.
• No. of players in England A/age group sides. As the thread on the U19s shows, the counties who use Koplaks are producing fewer youth players, so this needs to be adressed.
• Implementation and successful management of academy. Personally, I see this as the most important part of the plan but if counties lose money on the other areas, where does the money come from to fund the academy?

As this program is in its infancy it is going to get stronger (hopefully) and should increase the number of English players playing in the CC. The problem may well be that well known ECB trait of not wanting to upset anyone except the England fans, and still allowing 2-3 (or more) non overseas foreigners to play CC. The article does say that the sum may rise from £50000 in future years but the measure has been passed and it will take effect next season. It will probably be a case of wait and see what happens to the likes of Derbys who this is aimed at before we can see what is going to be required.

[Occasional Fan]

Hmm. There will be a few people "waiting and seeing", including EU employment lawyers (of which I am not one). Any signs of discrimination in favour of England-qualified players as against non-British EU citizens will bring a legal challenge from the EU. No doubt about it.

[Andy Mellon]

It would be interesting to see if they factor in the coaching that the Kolpak players put in. I know that at Essex, Andy Flower has been very helpful in coaching the youth teams and has been very active in pitching in with development programmes. However, he still takes up a space that Ravi Bopara or Mark Pettini could fill. How do you reconcile the postive and the negative effects on English youth cricketers of someone like Andy Flower then?

[Occasional Fan]

Andy, as you might expect from a Brit who chooses to earn his crust abroad, I come down very much in the free market side of this debate. I am not in favour of restricting any EU citizen's right to be employed anywhere in the EU. If that means that Yorkshire fields a team of eleven Hungarians because they are the best players they can find, so be it. As I said above, I'm not a lawyer, but anything which distorts the labour market in a Member State of the EU in favour of one nationality over the other 24 will lead to action from the EU - and rightly so, in my view.

I can see some argument for restricting working rights of non-EU citizens - but to be very honest, I see it only rather dimly. The arguments generally are framed purely in terms of market protection, and I don't subscribe to them. I'd always be in favour of letting the best qualified person do the job. I know that historically the county system has been where England internationals grew up, but the world has changed and cricket needs to change with it. No-one's stopping England qualified players learning their craft in The Netherlands, and in my free market world no-one would be able to stop them doing so in Australia or Pakistan if that's where they want to go and they're good enough to hold down the job.

As to Andy Flower - well, it's up to Essex to decide. Is he a net benefit to the club or a net burden? If they feel he's a net burden, they can can him. I think at the moment there would be no problem with this as he's not an EU citizen. But if he were, and if they canned him because they felt he was preventing them from receiving their "share" of the England development pot (or whatever it's called) - i.e. they fired him so they could put an Englishman in instead - they'd wind up in court, I suspect. And I'd put money on them to lose the day.

I think this is going to need some very careful handling. The penalties for getting it wrong under EU competition law are potentially huge - easily up at the level which has frightened the ECB over the Zimbabwe issue.

[Maranello]

Excellent post OF, good to see a fellow free marketeer.

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

The penalties for getting it wrong under EU competition law are potentially huge.

And rightly so - few things harm the long-term economic interest of a people more than mindless protectionism or parochial policies which build barriers and fences. The age of moats, fortifications, drawbridges and castle ramparts is over. Capitalism is built on free markets, but its success depends on everyone believing in the free market.

If producers or consumers distort the market (eg by imposing employment quotas), then the penalties should be severe. The citadel of free market ideology, the US, has the world's severest anti-trust laws, and has had them for well over a century. Adam Smith also commented on this, saying that (paraphrased) nothing harms the interests of the common man more than producers getting together and colluding - even if these producers are English counties getting together to prevent hiring and firing on merit.

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

If that means that Yorkshire fields a team of eleven Hungarians because they are the best players they can find, so be it. .

True, but we won't get a team of XI Hungarians - we instead get Australians, South Africans and Kiwi's with intresting passports.

I don't see anything wrong in insentivising counties to develop English Quailfied players, from the central pot of money created by England ticket reciepts. The only problem I have is that £50,000 seems like a very small amount.

[Goatman]

We should all look to the Rugby Union situation here. When the Southern Hemishpere sides were rampant, SCO, WAL, IRL and even ENG and FRA looked in danger of being swamped by second rate AUS and NZ players looking for an easy way to get into international rubgy via an interesting passport. SCO and WAL in particular suffered, feilding teams numerically dominated by imports at times. While the "grannygate" revelations cut down on the imports a bit in international rubgy, they are still playing club games in those countries.

Rather than stifling the native talent in SCO, and even more so WAL, the major impact of this has been to raise the standard of domestic competitions. And as the competitions raised thier standards, and coaches leart from thier southern counterparts (or were Aussies or Kiwis themselves) the standard of the native players improved. And then - surprise surprise! - suddenly a crop of talented youngsters come along, the old pros get the support the were looking for all along and raise thier own games and the imports are now getting squeezed out on the grounds of quality. The fact that the welsh team that took SA and then NZ all the way to the line in the last couple of weekends had a record-breaking number of players with the same surname (Jones) and that they all spoke with pronounced S. Wales accents tells us all we need to know.

Second rate Aussies are no better than second rate Brits. They are just better drilled. Let them come over here, so we can learn the drill of them, as they have in the rubgy. Let 'em in, that what I say. I back our talent to learn from them, turn it back on them and warm thier heals all the way back to Heathrow. Huzzah! And I doubt, somehow, that Yorkshire will ever have the opportunity to field XI Hungarians......