General

Why do Premier League footballers from outside the UK need a visa to play?

By Amer Zaman

on January 23, 2025

Read Time: 7 Minutes

As we look to what promises to be another hugely exciting calendar year of football in England – including the conclusion of the 2024-25 season with competitions like the League Cup, FA Cup, and UEFA Champions League, followed by the beginning of the 2025-26 season – the English Premier League continues to go from strength to strength.

The statistics tell their own story:

Heading into the final day of the 2023-24 season, stadiums had been 98.7 per cent full at that season’s Premier League matches.
In 2023-24, English Premier League clubs – taken together – generated revenues of almost seven billion euros, far surpassing any other league in Europe’s Big Five.
According to polling by Ampere in 2023, 23 per cent of sports fans across 14 countries were interested in the Premier League. This made it the third most popular competition, behind only the UEFA Champions League and the FIFA World Cup.

The Premier League has undeniably been one of England’s sporting, cultural, and economic success stories of recent times. However, this triumph is by no means an English one alone. It was reported earlier this year that since the Premier League’s formation in 1992, no fewer than 123 nationalities had featured in the competition.

There has been a well-documented explosion in the numbers of foreign players at the top levels of English football since the 1990s, with 68 nationalities said to have been represented across the Premier League’s 20 clubs in the 2023-24 season. That’s a far cry from the situation on the league’s opening weekend in 1992, when only 13 players from outside the British Isles featured.

Many a casual observer might have imagined, then, that today, it would be a quick and simple process for an English Premier League club to bring a new foreign-national player to the UK. The reality, however, is somewhat more complicated.

Do foreign footballers need a visa?

In accordance with the immigration system introduced in the UK after Brexit, non-UK nationals – including prospective Premier League footballers and those playing at other levels of the professional game – normally need permission to work in the UK.

In most cases, this means the given foreign footballer will need to apply to the UK Home Office for a visa.

The main UK visa option for professional footballers is the International Sportsperson visa:

Holders of this visa are entitled to stay in the UK and work – in other words, play professional football for a club in this country – for as long as three years.
The holder can continue extending this visa for as long as they satisfy the eligibility requirements.
After five years as a holder of this visa, the foreign national may have the option of settling permanently in the UK (a status known as “indefinite leave to remain”), if they have had at least one visa that lasted longer than 12 months.

There are certain groups of footballers from outside England that don’t require a visa in order to relocate to and play in the UK. This includes players from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, many of whom will already be holders of a British or Irish passport in any case.

How did Brexit affect professional footballers’ ability to move to – and stay in – England?

As aforementioned, the UK’s departure from the European Union (EU) had significant implications for the process by which professional footballers could relocate to the UK to play in the Premier League.

European players who moved to the UK on or before 31^st December 2020 – the end of the Brexit transition period – qualified for pre-settled status and subsequently settled status after being resident in the UK for five years under the EU Settlement Scheme. These players can use the scheme to secure their status by showing UK residence without bad character considerations or excessive absences.
Non-UK nationals travelling to the UK on or after 1^st January 2021 have generally all had to satisfy the same Immigration Rules requirements, in order to get permission to enter and remain in the UK via the International Sportsperson route. Players applying for this visa are expected to show that they are internally established, as well as that they are capable of significantly contributing to the development of football at the highest level in the UK.

What changes were introduced in 2023 for exceptionally promising, up-and-coming players?

The stricter visa rules imposed in the UK after Brexit, presented other European leagues with the opportunity to more easily sign and develop talented young footballers. Many of these same players then often attracted the attention of bigger clubs – including in England – and moved to another club for a substantial transfer fee.

Concerns about this situation led to the UK Home Office and the Football Association (FA) announcing altered Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) criteria for international footballers moving to the UK.

This change made it easier for English clubs to sign players who showed significant promise, instead of these clubs being largely limited to signing players who were already considered elite.

This significant exemption for Elite Significant Contribution (ESC) players was introduced in June 2023. It meant that Premier League and English Football League clubs were now able to sign ESC youth players who exhibited exceptional promise, even if they did not satisfy standard endorsement criteria.

What does a footballer – and their club – need to do for their move to England?

As we have mentioned, it is typically the International Sportsperson visa that a footballer must obtain if they wish to relocate to the UK and play in the Premier League.

The process they are normally required to follow is:

First, the visa applicant must gain GBE from their sport’s governing body. In the case of prospective Premier League footballers, this is the FA. The criteria for GBE cover such aspects as the number of international appearances the player has made, how many minutes they have featured in domestic or continental competition, and the success of the player’s previous club.
Once endorsement has been granted to the player, the club will be able to assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to them. In order to do this, the club must hold a valid sponsor licence from the Home Office.
The player can then prepare and submit their application for an International Sportsperson visa to the Home Office. The applicant needs to attain at least 70 points under the UK’s points-based immigration system.
After the player has applied online, proved their identity, and supplied their documents, they will usually get a decision on their visa application within three weeks if they’re outside the UK, or eight weeks if they’re in the UK. They may, however, be able to pay the Home Office to receive a faster decision than this.

How much is a sports visa for the UK?

The costs associated with the UK International Sportsperson visa will depend on such factors as how long the sportsperson – such as a Premier League footballer – intends to stay in the UK, and whether they apply from within or outside the UK.

If the applicant expects to stay and work in the UK for up to 12 months, the visa fee is £298 per person. If they anticipate staying and playing professional football in the country for longer than 12 months, the fee will be:

£719 per person if they will be applying outside the UK
£827 per person if they will be applying inside the UK to extend their visa, or to switch from another type of UK visa.

As well as the visa application fee, the overseas national will need to pay the healthcare surcharge, which is usually £1,035 per year.

Furthermore, the applicant for an International Sportsperson visa will be obliged to ensure they have sufficient personal savings to support themselves when they arrive in the UK. They will need to have a minimum of £1,270 in their bank account to demonstrate this, and they must have had the money available to them for at least 28 consecutive days.

The visa applicant’s partner and children may also be eligible to apply to join them or stay in the UK as their “dependants”.

If the sportsperson’s partner and/or children wish to take this route, they will need to have a certain amount of money to support themselves during their time in the UK:

£285 for the main visa applicant’s partner
£315 for one child of the main visa applicant
£200 for each additional child of the main visa applicant

Each family member will be required to complete a separate application and to pay the fee for this visa. They must apply for the visa prior to travelling to the UK.

Our specialists in UK immigration law can project-manage your visa application

If you are a professional sportsperson who is looking to obtain permission to relocate to the UK, or if you require advice and help with any other aspect of your engagement with the UK immigration system, please don’t hesitate to contact Cranbrook Legal.

We would be pleased to project-manage your application for a UK visa from the start to finish of the process. This can range from the initial preparations and gathering of documents, right through to handling any expected or unexpected issues that may arise.

Simply call 0208 215 0053 for further information. Alternatively, you are welcome to fill in and submit our online contact form to arrange a free consultation.