For football fans, June 10th – the day Euro 2016 kicks off – is likely to be a more exciting prospect than June 23rd – when Britain votes on whether to stay in the EU. But could lovers of the beautiful game see English football become unstuck in the event of Brexit?
Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League has said Britain should stay in the EU; West Ham’s vice chairman Karren Brady has made a similar argument, suggesting that Brexit would have ‘devastating consequences’.
But not everyone agrees: former England player Sol Campbell says that with Britain in the EU ‘mediocre overseas footballers, especially from Europe (are) crowding out young English and British talent’.
It’s certainly the case that many players playing football in the Premiership and other leagues are from overseas. It’s also true that most of them have benefited from automatic eligibility to work in Britain, as a result of European free movement rules; amongst those to have done so are West Ham’s Dimitri Payet and Chelsea’s Cesc Fabregas.
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