Joined: Dec 22 2001 Posts: 10445 Location: Bradford
If the situation was reversed I'd have few qualms about nicking him off Catalans and I have no problem with their actions at all. What I do have a problem with is the UK immigration authorities, as their actions here seem clealry counter-productive to the common good. Bird is a skilled worker and close to a sure thing to get people spending money, which I thought was something the Government was in favour of. Thanks to the UKBA he'll now be doing that in France.
The RFL should have ruled he cannot play. With salary caps, quotas, etc it is supposed to be a level playing field and giving Catalans the right to sign him makes a mockery of RFL rules and regulations. London lost a great player in Julien Rinaldi due to the RFL mess not being sorted out about European players and their place in SL, lets not see another cock up. I feel for Bradford because these discrepancies mess up their team formation like Rinaldi errors messed up London. By the time the decisions are made it is to late as most good players have been snapped up. Keep Bird out of SL he was kicked out of Cronulla so why should we have him here.
Joined: Oct 19 2003 Posts: 17898 Location: Packed like sardines, in a tin
af wrote:If the situation was reversed I'd have few qualms about nicking him off Catalans and I have no problem with their actions at all. What I do have a problem with is the UK immigration authorities, as their actions here seem clealry counter-productive to the common good. Bird is a skilled worker and close to a sure thing to get people spending money, which I thought was something the Government was in favour of. Thanks to the UKBA he'll now be doing that in France.
Joined: Feb 05 2009 Posts: 366 Location: In a state of disrepair
Asim wrote:Bird is an Aussie, therefore he does not have any automatic right to ply his trade in the UK.
Bird is an Aussie, so no club outside Australia (or any countries Aussies are free to live and work in without restriction) has any right to employ him to ply his trade for them.
Amazing as it may seem, the law of the land overrides the rules and regulations for the playing of a game, if France has lower standards than we do then that is their problem.
My point was, irrespective of national laws, that it is still a ristriction of trade over the other 13 clubs in Super League, which IT IS. And restriction of trade can be, if neccessary, governed by the EU. Although they could not change the visa situation they could rule that: any party must be made available to the whole structure and that there should be no regulations, national or otherwise, to prevent this.
This would not change the visa laws it would just mean that if your not eligible for one Super League club your not eligible for any. The governing body would be the one's at fault for allowing such a situation to arise in the first place.
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