Quote: His Bobness "A sporting organisation cannot ban anyone purely on the grounds of nationality. That would be racist, discriminatory and against the law.
Many foreign born players have a legal right to live and work in the EU and the RFL cannot decide to exclude them.
Many Australian born players have EU passports so they do not count on the quota. Many players have passports from the south pacific islands and they too cannot count on the quota because of the KOLPAK agreement with the EU.
If you have an Australian or New Zealand passport and nothing else you are on the quota and there is a limit of 5 but many, many players get round this by applying for other passports. If they get one they have a legal right to live & work in the UK.
What the RFL can do is apply the 'non federation trained' limit of 5 - this is nothing to do with where a player was born or what passport they have but is about where they played rugby prior to the age of 21. The UK Borders Agency have allowed the RFL to implement this rule in order to help develop young players, however players must come off this list after they have been here 3 years, for example Rangi Chase.
I'll give you an example, Rhys Lovegrove of Hull KR. Born in Australia but has a UK passport which means he is not on the quota. He also played for Hull KR prior to the age of 21 so he is not on the non federation trained list either (even if he had been he would be off now having been here over 3 years)
There's nothing the RFL can do about this even if they wanted to so it's quite pointless for supporters to demand otherwise. You may as well say limit the number of players with certain skin colours, you just can't do it it's racist and illegal.
People have to understand that sporting bodies like the RFL have to abide by the law and cannot decide themselves who can and cannot live & work in this country. Clubs do not have to sign anyone of course but the RFL cannot create their own rules to restrict opportunity to those who would otherwise be entitled to work here. That's why quota's can never ever be anything other than a token gesture.'"
I'd check that.
Of course it's a token gesture, but it's one needed so clubs invest in youth.
Uefa and Fifa have brought similar rules in.