Brexit means nobody knows what future is for Scottish football signing talent from abroad

HEADING into the final six months before Brexit, Scottish football remains none the wiser, indeed fearful, about the future it faces.

On March 29 next year, Britain is scheduled to officially leave the European Union.

The move to break away from the EU is one with potentially very serious consequences for the game.

Currently players from the other 28 member countries can all come to play in Scotland because the EU is effectively treated as one big country, so they enjoy the same freedom of movement as any other group of workers.

It is a situation which has seen the likes of Henrik Larsson, Brian Laudrup and Franck Sauzee able to become huge stars in our top flight.

Non EU-players can also come here, with Rangers’ Colombian star Alfred Morelos and Celtic’s Honduran defender Emilio Izaguirre two current examples.

In these cases, however, UK clubs have to apply for a Home Office work permit on their behalf, with applicants having to meet the condition of having played in at least 75% of their country’s international games in the past two years.

Here exemptions can be obtained – provided a specially-convened panel can be convinced of their merits.

Post-Brexit, the game’s leading bodies are desperate to keep things much as they are.

They fear a reverse-Bosman scenario in which, with movement between countries severely restricted, clubs would be left with a tiny market from which to pick up players.

While that’s a scenario of particular concern to England’s cash-rich – but star-dependent – Premier League, it would also affect the near 20% of our top flight who come from EU countries other than the UK.

Talks on the subject have been taking place between the SPFL and the Premier League, with the two bodies set to lobby the government for an exemption.

How much success they will have, though, remains to be seen with things very far from clear.

Tony Higgins, the Scottish representative of FIFPro, the international footballers’ union. has been monitoring the situation.

He said: “Coming up to this point, six months away from Brexit, we had really hoped to be in a position to advise our members what was going to be happening.

“Unfortunately that is not the case. All we can tell them is that no-one really knows what lies ahead for the game.

“We don’t even know if the period of transition – from March 29 2019 to December 31 2020 – is going to apply to football.

“There will be a push for exemptions for the top flights in Scotland and England. But the feedback we are getting is that very similar representations will be made on behalf of all sorts of different professions.

“And the bottom line is they aren’t all going to be judged as special cases.

“Fans have become used to seeing lots of players from the likes of France, Spain and Scandinavia playing in our top teams. That might not be happening any more.

“As with other situations, we can surmise that a lot is going to depend on whether we end up with a so-called ‘hard Brexit’, or not.

“So, at the moment, all we can really do is wait until the situation becomes clearer.”

As a general rule, young players look likely to be the group most affected.

Celtic broke their own transfer record in the summer when spending £10m to sign up Odsonne Edouard from Paris Saint-Germain, having previously had the striker on loan last season.

As an uncapped 20-year-old, the Frenchman would not meet the Home Office criteria to come to this country.

And, such is the depth of talent available to the current world champions at all age levels, it would also be a tough sell to convince a panel he was a special talent who was likely to develop into a player who would play regularly for France.

With similar restrictions working the other way, the transfer of 21-year-old Scot David Bates from Rangers to Hamburg under free agency would have been unlikely to take place.

Not everyone in the game sees the potential tightening up of player movement as a bad thing.

Those critics, who have argued clubs need to do more to promote young Scottish talent into their sides for the long term good of the national side, would be delighted to see teams forced to turn to their youth academies in their hunt for new talent.

Also, were wealthy English buyers unable to get their options severely reduced, it is fair to imagine their valuation of available Scots would quickly increase.