I completely endorse that point. This is not just about the top clubs in the Premier League; it is about the survival of professional football in the country. I am delighted to hear the noble Lord place his points on the record and I completely endorse them.
Briefly, when we look at the rugby football world, there are Kolpak players. I mentioned this at an early stage on Second Reading, so I will not rehearse the Kolpak agreement. Kolpak players, under the Cotonou agreement, have specific non-discriminatory rights once they are lawfully employed in the European Union. In rugby, this means that, once a player from a Kolpak country has legally entered the UK, they cannot be classed as a foreign player under the Rugby Football Union regulations. Currently, the RFU regulations are that there should be no more than two foreign players in a match day squad in the top four tiers of English rugby. There are some 165 contracted Kolpak players in the top four tiers.
This is a very important point. Negotiations will need to take place within the context of the European Union and the UK Government and also with the Rugby Football Union. There needs to be early engagement with the RFU so clubs have visibility and can make strong commercial decisions moving forward over a number of years. That is vitally important. Many noble Lords have made the point today that we need consistency, clarity and vision so that decisions in the world of sport can be made early rather than the day before the season starts.
Noon
I will conclude by saying that the Government should, in my view, focus not only on the impact of, say, professional players in cricket but also the impact on the business of sport. In cricket many first class counties rely on seasonal workers to deliver match day experiences, especially in the hospitality and stewarding sectors. Any change from the current migration system could affect cricket’s ability to host not only domestic competitions but future international competitions. The ICC Cricket World Cup comes just two months after Brexit. While the teams are primarily from outside the EU, nobody would wish to see any arrangement that inhibited the ability of fans to attend matches.
Again for cricket, the ability to set the appropriate level of overseas players in our domestic competition is essential. The ECB is the national governing body of cricket and its quota of overseas players is set to strike the balance between encouraging the development of home-grown players and ensuring that the best talent in the world can come and test their skills against the best English and Welsh talent.
I will conclude with one point that may be of benefit as a result of Brexit. I know that the noble Lord intervened on the last speech to ask if there was anything that might benefit. There is much EU-specific legislation that impacts sport. It clearly remains to be seen whether that will continue in the long term. EU state aid legislation is an important example in this context. It is one of the key pillars, as we all know, of EU competition law and essentially prohibits a member state from distorting competition by favouring one market participant over another. In the sports sector this has come up in the context of stadium developments, such as the allegation that licensing the Olympic stadium to West Ham constituted unlawful state assistance. Indeed, the European Commission has clawed back €18 million from Real Madrid after the city council transferred land to the club at a significant undervalue, while six other Spanish clubs were also found to be involved in similar breaches.
Given that there is currently no equivalent domestic law, this could be one of the first areas of legislation to be scrutinised—and I very much hope it will be, because if removed it would potentially allow public bodies to subsidise more stadium developments and other major sporting infrastructure projects in this country. We desperately need that investment at local authority level. I hope that that one benefit in a speech of otherwise significant concerns that face professional sport could also be looked at carefully by my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues. I am grateful once again to the noble Lord, Lord Monks, for giving us the opportunity to raise these issues. I am equally grateful to my noble friends for putting their names to the amendment.