And every man and his dog can use the kolpak ruling?

Everyone in every league can sign 5 non fed trained players - as with super league last year, everyone runs an academy and stops bothering to try and cheat the system, and everyone plays by the same rules.

This is what now your 6th? Attempt at finding a solution that can’t be easily picked a part?

I don’t know why you are persisting in telling us ‘not hard is it?’ because you are certainly making it look very very difficult.

What exactly is the problem with the current set up. Obviously it's going to take time for the two systems, quota and federation to merge.

But it's taken time in SL. Hell at Saints we still have Manu who is eligible only under the quota ruling as it protected players already in the system.

I've no issue with players already in the system having their livelihoods protected, it's new signings that need to fall into line with the non-fed trained rule and so long as we are all working our way towards this I do not forsee a problem.

My biggest issue was the lifting of the numbers that you can have non-fed trained from 5-7, but I am not sure whether that was ever ratified. I'm assuming it was because of Salfords signings.

It was done because the fed trained quota wouldn’t stand up to legal scrutiny. Every single time it has been challenged the RFL have simply capitulated.

We have to accept that people who have a legal right to work here cant have that right restricted by the RFL. We need to look at carrots not sticks. Carrots unfortunately don’t work with P+R, not being relegated goes above everything.

Hardly.

It's got nothing to do with P+R. The non-fed ruling is what has forced clubs to look inwards and also downwards towards the championship. We had licencing and it did nothing to stop clubs buying in from abroad.

The ruling does not stop players with the legal right to work working, it stops clubs hiring. Personally I don't see an issue with it. It's just a rule of the game, same as only having 13 players on the pitch, or are we saying that a team should be able to field 20 players as not doing so would stop someones right to work.

There is a difference between the right to work and the expectations of being hired.

It’s the same thing. Not allowing a club to hire someone is exactly the same as not allowing someone to work for them. Those people have a legal right to work here, they have legal protections against discrimination and it isn’t a rule of the game. It is a restriction on certain peoples right to seek work in this country.

So, I wonder how the Football Association, for example, 'gets away with' only employing "Englishmen" to play for the England Football team.

Do you really? In that case you are a moron.

It has and does stand up to legal scrutiny. Because it's basically the same rule that is in force in the Champions League and the Premier League. In SL, if it didn't stand up to legal scrutiny then Hull KR wouldn't have had to de-register Dobson during the Willie Mason saga. In the Premier League I can remember Man Utd being forced to leave Owen Hargreaves out of their squad because he didn't fit the criteria. I'm sure if it didn't stand up to legal scrutiny that the 2nd richest sports club in the world, worth just over $3bn would have challenged it in court. Or Owen Hargreaves himself.

The Quota rule didn't work very well.
The non-fed trained rules do.

A doctor in England can only be hired by a hospital once he has passed the British set of exams for medicine, regardless of how experienced or trained he is else where. In fact hospitals can take a certain number on whilst they complete their exams but no more (and only for a certain amount of time)

Is this discrimination too?

When?


Hargreaves was left out because he was injured. Neither the PL nor CL 'quotas' are such as they sound simply because football, like RL, cannot usurp the free movement of workers in the EU (and as such the cotonou countries). The ECB have literally admitted as much. That their quota isnt a quota at all, it is a gentlemens agreement with no punishment available if transgressed.
Yet our federation is the ‘european’ federation and we are back to Mr Kolpak.

The answer is to actually follow the ECB model of payments to clubs who produce players. This just becomes much more difficult when you have P+R.

If you don’t agree, then fine, but this is the 5th time the laws have been changed and no club has ever been punished for transgressing them, including your Dobson/Mason situation which ‘special dispensation’ was needed to be given. Whether you agree with the legalities or not, the RFL clearly don’t have stomach to fight for them.

No, that’s gaining a qualification to practise medicine.

British people who arent qualified Doctors also arent allowed to be Doctors.

Every year it goes unchallenged. The fact it works in some of the biggest and richest sporting leagues and competitions on the planet. Why do the likes of Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich etc abide by these rules if they thought they could get around them? The rules have led to clubs signing players at younger ages to fit them in, but they haven't challenged the rules.


No, Hargreaves was left out because he was classed as overseas (ie not homegrown or nationally grown) and so wouldn't fit into the squad with others also in the classification. His injury meant that it was he and not another player that had to be left out. Either way, Man Utd were forced to leave a player out of their squad due to the rules. Are you suggesting Man Utd didn't have the resources to fight this?


The Kolpak laws are irrelevant to the Fed Trained rules.



Which laws have been changed 5 times? Is it actually possible to transgress the rules since the RFL don't ratify player contracts unless they abide by the rules? Same as the salary cap. The only way to transgress the rules is to commit fraud.
Whether the RFL have the stomach to fight them or not is irrelevant as to whether they are legal and enforceable. They quite clearly are, as evidenced by the 2 richest football competitions in the world. And evidenced by the reduction of overseas players in Super League.

When was it not, give me an example of when the non-federation ruling has been challenged by a player or a club and so been changed

I can't give you an example of when it was not changed as you can't prove a negative.



The federation is the european federation, but you are missing one word out which is trained. If it was an English player trained in Oz they would not be eligible to play if the club was over the set amount.




This is the first time the non-fed rules have been changed. The dobson/mason situation was within the rules as they stood at the time. You could register and deregister players. Hull KR took advantage of a loop hole that had been left. After that loop hole was pointed out by that situation it was closed for the following year.

The change in the number of non-federation trained players was done ages ago regardless of the league structure and whilst I don't agree with it that's the way it is, I imagine the biggest driving factor was that some clubs have just not pushed their own development and the financial consequences of teams like Wakefield needing to make savings by selling players and the only man in town able to buy being the good Dr who had already reached the clubs limit.

I think any legal challenge would be easily won by the RFL, but if you want to sway them the financial implications are a far easier tool to use.

ie

"Let us sell Tim Smith to Salford"
"No they are up to quota"
"Ok we will be likely to go bust then"
"erm ok you can sell him"

Or

"We want to buy Tim Smith from Wakefield"
"No you are up to quota"
"Ok then Wakey will go bust and I'll reconsider my investment in Salford"
"Erm ok then we'll make a dispensation and then change the rules "

1. That would assume that these clubs either had or could transgress these rules. If for instance you could create a squad of 25 players 0 of which were home trained, but you could register an infinite amount of players under 21 in said squad. Those rules would mean, like Chelsea, you could have only 5 home trained players and meet that requirement couldn't you. Because the infinite amount of under 21 players you could register would suffice the 8.

2. It was city rather than Utd, and im suggesting they didn't need to.

3. They aren't because you can't have free movement of workers then apply an extra criteria to workers of different nationalities.

4. I am saying they havent been transgressed 5 times, Because they have been changed 5 times because the clubs wanting more twice, because of Stanley Gene, because of one of the Henderson brothers, and because of Dobson/Mason. Every time the RFL have been called upon to actually apply the rules they have simply changed them.

5. Prior to Marc Bosman you could say the same, prior to Maros Kolpak you could say the same.