Salford experts comment
Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sports Enterprise at the University of Salford, said: “We are moving into uncharted territory here and this could have a big impact on the Premier League. If the pound continues to fall then foreign talent will become more expensive, so that could have a huge knock-on effect in the summer transfer window. Plus the wages of players coming to England are now worth a lot less than previously.
“As many as 400 players in the top two divisions in England and Scotland could fail new work permit requirements, including players like Dimitri Payet and N’Golo Kante. But it is very unlikely they will have to leave immediately.
“Will it boost homegrown talent? Clearly if we are going to restrict the movement of players, clubs will have to get their players from somewhere. But a lot of clubs have downsized their reserve teams. There could be a big onus on clubs to reconstruct their talent systems and English players could get more opportunities again. But at the same time the lack of international exposure could impact on their skills as they are not playing with the best players anymore.”
Eileen Fairhurst, Professor in Public Health with extensive experience of chairing NHS trusts, said: “One of the Leave campaign’s main arguments was that money which would be returned to the UK from exiting Europe would become available to be spent on the NHS.
“However, there remain serious doubts about whether that will be the case. The allocation of resources is always a political decision made in Parliament by the government, and today’s response from the City, as well as the Prime Minister’s resignation announcement, make this even more problematic.
“Within the academic sector, programmes such as Erasmus have had a huge impact on the careers of many of our academics and have provided excellent opportunities for British students to enhance their education. It would be a grave disservice to the younger generation if our participation in such schemes were abandoned.”
Dr Jonathan Lord, Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Employment Law, said: “Leaving the EU will not change current legislation, but will more likely affect the future protection of workers’ rights. It’s highly unlikely that legislation introduced by the EU will be removed as it not only has be entrenched into UK employment legislation, but has been woven into the best practice for employers dealing with employees.
“The main ramifications of this historic vote will be felt in the future. The protection of workers’ rights has been one of the key objectives of the EU, which has constantly scheduled future employment rights.
“In 2018 the EU General Data Protection Regulations is going to replace the current data protection directive. Will the UK implement this directive? It will take two years for the UK to extract itself from the EU, it’s an unprecedented move but it would be unusual for the UK to agree to future labour law from an institution of which it is no longer a member.
“The other issue is when the European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights will no longer accept cases to be heard. This will be written into the Brexit agreement, but it could affect current and imminent cases that want to utilise a court which could act independently of the UK legal process.
“Therefore it’s more likely that employment law already implemented will not change, but future law will certainly be influenced from the UK, although one would hope that the UK would still adopt the best practices of European law.”
