Report: Work permit battle could negatively impact Celtic and Rangers

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The Ibrox and Celtic Park outfits’ ability to sign exciting young talents could be hampered.

The Scottish FA and SPFL are set to fight for the right to retain current work permit rules in Scottish football, with plans afoot that could provide a big problem for Celtic and Rangers, The Evening Times report.

The paper say that Home Office officials could look to grant the English FA with the power to impose their visa application process on all four home nations.

The report uses examples of stars such as Alfredo Morelos who may not have been able to come to Scottish football if the new rules were in place previously.

It’s also said that even players such as Virgil van Dijk and Odsonne Edouard may not have been granted permission to play in Scotland using the planned procedure if the UK goes on to exit the European Union.

Currently clubs across Britain are guaranteed a work permit for any player from a country in the top 70 of the FIFA rankings as long as he has played in 75% of their national team’s games in the previous two years.

However, in Scotland there is a functional appeals process that allows clubs to argue the benefits of signing a player who does not meet those stringent criteria.

It’s something that authorities at Hampden are keen to see continue.

SPFL secretary Ian Blair told The Evening Times: “We believe the system we have currently works well for Scottish football and its clubs because it allows them to bring in players from overseas who might not meet what is, effectively, an arbitrary barrier and a pretty high bar.

“Stilian Petrov would not have qualified when Celtic signed him from CSKA Sofia 20 years ago and I don’t think anyone could argue he did anything other than make a significant impact on Scottish football.

“Indeed, the success Celtic and Rangers enjoyed in 2003 and 2008 and are currently enjoying was and is helped by having a sizeable amount of players from abroad. If we want to see our club game flourish then we need to be very careful what we do in this area.”

Clearly it’s an issue to keep an eye on for supporters of both clubs.

Both Glasgow clubs are building a current model that absolutely relies on signing young talent from abroad and selling for a large fee to bigger leagues.

Anything that detracts from that is likely to be a big barrier in terms of their long-term progress, especially in European competition.