Brexit complicates life for Slovak footballers

The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union has also impacted football transfers across the continent, effectively returning the market to what it looked like two decades ago.

Tonight at midnight, the winter transfer window for professional football competitions in England closes. This is a landmark transfer window, as it is the first one post-Brexit. “The free movement of footballers as employees has been abolished due to the UK leaving the EU. The aim is to ensure that only national team players or those with above-standard quality can enter top English competitions,” sports analyst Jozef Tokos, who specializes in sports law, told the Economic Daily. Slovak players can still transfer to the cradle of football—but under significantly tougher conditions.

For the past 15 years, Slovak players and their agents didn’t face any major bureaucratic hurdles when transferring to professional leagues in England. After Slovakia and neighboring countries joined the EU, the football market gradually liberalized, and the conditions for crossing the English Channel opened up new opportunities for thousands of players from continental Europe. For example, if a third-division club like AFC Wimbledon wanted a player from Spartak Trnava, they only needed to agree on terms with the Slovak club—or directly with the player, if his contract was expiring. And the transfer was done.

However, as of January 1, the rules have changed significantly. Getting a contract in the Premier League, or even in the second or third tier, is now much harder—regardless of the fact that many Slovaks have left a strong mark on English football. Under today’s regulations, many of them would have no chance of signing with an English club. Since 2021, foreign players now require what is called a Governing Body Endorsement—a state-approved permit to play for an English club. This is a points-based system that evaluates key criteria such as the number of national team appearances, the level of the league, and the quality of the club the player is coming from. Similar rules have long applied to non-European players. For European footballers, this marks a return to the system in place 20 years ago, when such procedures were the norm.

Whether such measures are justified will only be clear over time. In any case, the reduction in European competition is good news for graduates of local academies. “Of course, the local boys are happy—and there’s a lot of them. Their path to the first team should now be easier,” added Tokos. (...)