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Kolpak era coming to an end?
By Will 4 months ago, Comments
There are undoubtedly a number of quality cricketers who have qualified to play in England as Kolpaks. Murray Goodwin, Deon Kruis and Jacques Rudolph come to mind. They are in a minority, however; the vast majority lack international experience and are keeping out young England-qualified players. I’m pleased to hear that the era might be coming to an end.
CommentsThe European Commission is poised to close the Kolpak loophole and allow the ECB to limit the number of non-European players taking part in county cricket.
At present, several countries, most notably South Africa and some in the Caribbean, are signatories to the Cotonou treaty with the European Union, which was agreed in 2000. This has, until now, been interpreted as allowing freedom of labour for people from those countries inside the EU, and that has led to an explosion in the number of Kolpak players in county cricket. At present, there are approximately 64 on contract.
At a conference this week, Michal Krejza, the head of the commission’s sports unit, said: “It is the decision of individual member states to admit Cotonou players, not the European Union.”
