Humphrey Appleby

Poor substitute for Marmite anyway...

He technically wasn't accused of rape.

FFS - I've been through it in detail over the years and it's not difficult to understand (as indeed SCB has also been saying). They're just compounding their idiocy/blatant abuse of the regulations by claiming otherwise.

Drink too much of that stuff and you'll done on caffeine... LOL

I'd say that's not totally unreasonable that the fixtures of the third tier aren't out before the end of January. That level has to work around the needs of the higher tiers in terms of availability of tracks and riders.

Maybe if the sport was followed by thousands of gullible idiots, but can there be anyone involved with speedway other than the promoters and the Star who thinks it's anything less than incompetence? There's not even the usual levels of speedway apologists on this thread - the type who normally come to the defence of certain speedway riders - which surely says something. Probably better for the BSPA to just put out a statement with the facts that visas have been cancelled, under investigation, hoping problems will be resolved before the start of the season etc.. etc.. rather than make yourself look even more foolish. What's almost worse though, is that total unquestioning stance from the journal of record - printing stuff about 'hiccups' and 'discrepancies' rather than providing a hard-hitting editorial about the latest episode of ineptitude in the sport. No doubt they needed to keep some space for those tractor production figures though...

What a pathetic article in the Spar today - basically whinging about the UK authorities getting tough on enforcing the rules that BSAP basically agreed with them, blaming unclear legislation and UKV&I for not keeping promoters informed. What's unclear about it - it's all perfectly understandable without the need for a lawyer, and it comes down to teams basically turning a blind eye to the rules and hoping they'd get away with it. Why not actually some condemnation of the negligence and rule breaking in the sport?

They would be headlines in the Daily Mail...

It should already be T20. Twenty heats of about a minute each could easily be run in less time than a T20 cricket match. Paramedics are not only more important than speedway riders to society, but people will die if there's a shortage of them.

'Clamping down' is much more difficult than you make out, especially if the whereabouts of illegals or those violating the terms of their visas is unknown. What the authorities can do is ensure those riding in front of a few spectators each week follow the rules, and I'm surprised given your stance on 'clamping down' that you're even trying to argue otherwise. The NL is lower than that as the Conference has some full-time professional teams as far as I'm aware. I'd put the NL somewhere around a Step 5 league like the Hellenic.

I'd like to know what evidence you present in favour that argument. However, once again, illegal immigrants are by definition illegal and don't follow the rules, either by sneaking into the country in the back of a truck or by overstaying after entering the country legitimately. It's very difficult for the authorities to tackle this, in particular the overstayer problem. What they can do though, is ensure that the rules are applied to the prospective immigrants or seasonal workers they do know about, or are you suggesting the rules should simply be ignored for speedway riders?

Tempting as it is, Having an idiot friend should not be used as evidence against you...😮

BSI seem to turn an okay profit, and its executives seem to be decently rewarded into the bargain, but it's not mega money by the standards of most top level competitions. Of course it's 3 million quid that could be going into speedway's coffers rather than those of an American corporation to blow on golf courses and the like, but no-one seems to care about that. Would be surprised if the local GP promoters are turning much if anything in profit, but of course it's much easier to cover your losses on a single event then a season's worth.

Oh please - move with the times. People can work where they like nowadays - slavery and indenturing disappeared years ago. I earn money in three countries and pay tax in three countries as well. One thing you can be sure of is that tax authorities have ways of tracking you down. Although cricket is all becoming a bit of a farce with all the T20 leagues and no one really knowing who plays for who anymore. The T20 Champions League is particularly farcical.

It was more than 10 years ago when I last looked, but some promotions were putting odd things through the books. That's what they were declaring, so one wonders what wasn't being declared. You can roughly estimate income and outgoings though, and it doesn't take an accountant to work out there's no money in the sport. It's probably more a question of what the real scale of losses are.

What about the Premier League?

Nice try, but the BSPA are also responsible for registering teams and transfer agreements, so could easily check whether a work permit rider is riding for the proper team. Sure they're ultimately not responsible for the consequences because they're not the employer, but it seems very remiss of the trade association to continually overlook flagrant breaches of the work permit conditions that they negotiated. Some might even call it negligent given the consequences for all members.

They should read the rules which were publicly posted on the government website. I'm quite sure most promotions were aware they were breaking them, but hoped the authorities would overlook it as they previously had. My previous employer had a number of work permit employees and I don't recall us ever having to attend a workshop, far less have visas cancelled. No doubt this is remedial action in response to widespread abuses.

Average attendance in League 2 is 4,500, which I suspect every BEL track would die for. In fact, there's the odd team in the Northern League round your way that probably draw crowds not far off some BEL teams these days. The issue of the national team is more a problem with the top flight, because I'm sure how many England internationals really come through the lower leagues these days.

It's not an issue because there's hardly any Kiwis in the UK (something like 50K) and most have recent British ancestry. Equally though, no-one complains about all the Irish, Germans and Yanks in the UK, despite them being the first, fourth and fifth largest group of immigrants respectively. It's mainly those who speak funny or have coloured skin that people have difficulty with. Australia is a bit different to NZ though, as you can't really make assumptions about the ethnic origin of an Australian these days. There's now lots of Australian citizens who were Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, Pacific Islanders and the like, so they not only do they not have a British background, but are not necessarily native English speakers either. Moreover, Australia does not give Brits any special privileges when it comes to immigration (although it is easier for us once you're actually in the country - e.g. UK driving licences are recognised), so can't really expect special treatment in return. I personally think there should be freedom of movement between the UK, Australia and New Zealand because economic levels are similar and immigration tends to balance out, but no politician is going to be advocating that in the current anti-immigrant climate. There's no doubt this crackdown on speedway is the authorities being seen to be 'getting tough on immigration', because they've also been doing it in sectors that are far more valuable to the UK economy.

No, the onus is on the employer to know the rules and follow them, not for them to do what they like until the authorities enforce them. Promotions can't now grumble because they've been caught at an inconvenient time, but would they have been happier if visas had been cancelled mid-season?

I had a similar idea some years ago, but using 'second half' individual races/competitions where riders would score ranking points towards GP qualification places. The aim was to add more meaningful races to the rather woeful 15 you get nowadays at a standard meeting. The main drawback is that it would potentially exclude riders outside of the main national leagues, although you'd generally expect the best riders to be riding in either Britain, Poland, Sweden. However, you could reserve some places for the best-placed non-qualifiers in the Euro competition, or even run a separate GP challenge for those with no other means of qualification.

As far as I'm aware, a non-EU citizen holding a work permit in an EU country does not automatically entitle them to work in another EU country. I'm also fairly sure the condition of entering the UK either visa free or with a visitors visa is that no paid employment is allowed, which would preclude competing the British leagues. The SGP is an interesting question, but the UK has so-called sports visitors visas that allow you to compete in one-off tournaments (as a professional or amateur). There's all manner of reasons for the rider shortages, but most of these challenges are faced by other sports as well, and they've still managed to invest in proper youth training programmes. In fairness, some reasonable efforts have been made in speedway to address the issues as well, but the system still suffers from a lack of joined-up thinking, self-interest, and a lack of proper investment (partly because the sport lives hand-to-mouth). You only have to look at all the "PL shouldn't be used to prop-up the EL" arguments on the forum, when in fact the success of the sport (any sport) is entirely dependent on having a healthy top level and underlying feeder leagues that encourage progression. We can all identity the problems even if we can't agree on the solutions, but it's hardly anything new and I don't see why it's the concern of UK Immigration when the visas are getting handed-out.

The fact that speedway doesn't contribute much to the economy is even less reason to be lax. I'm sure many Indian restaurants are on the margins of existence and rely on cheap (and sometimes illegal) cooks, but they don't get much sympathy from those demanding that government get tough on immigration. Once again, illegals are not really relevant to this discussion because they are by definition working illegally, whereas speedway riders are fairly visible sportspersons about whom the question can quite easily be asked whether they're world class in their field. There's nothing to stop Polish riders racing in the UK if they only want to ride in the UK. Presumably its their contracts with their more lucrative Polish teams that restrict this, or the terms of their Polish licenses that state they have to give priority to Polish meetings. There's nothing to say that an employer has to allow you to work for another employer at the same time. If you don't like it you can always resign. And you don't think foreign speedway riders also put a burden on our healthcare system when they get injured? UKIP wants to restrict all immigration, not just from the EU, which is also something popular with many of those who don't vote UKIP. The current government has responded by promising to reduce immigration, so is cracking down on just about every sector (especially education which generates billions for the UK economy). People are now getting what they asked for, and yet somehow at the same time think speedway should get some sort of special treatment. If UKIP gets its way and gets restrictions on EU migrants, then expect far more of this border bureacrazy in speedway. Of course it's an immigration thing, otherwise it wouldn't be dealt with by the UK Immigration Department. You could also argue that potato pickers and sheep shearers are also seasonal transient workers who don't intend to remain in the UK, but they're still affected by all of this. I'd fully agree that elite actors, entertainers and sportspersons represent something of a special case when it comes to work permits, which is why there's always been specific rules for these categories of employment. However, the decisions should be based around whether a sportsperson is truly a top-flight performer, whether people will specifically pay to watch them perform, and how much value their industry adds to the UK economy. That there's a load of dross playing in the lower tiers of the Football League is not really an argument in favour of letting speedway do what it wants. The top four football divisions sit at the top of a huge pyramid of thousands of clubs that's fully or semi-professional down to at least the 9th or 10th level. I suspect the number of work permit players represents a tiny percentage of all professional footballers in the UK, whereas the National League in speedway is more equivalent to the Northern Alliance or Wearside League in football. 22 riders out of 200-odd professional riders is over 10%, and many are not riding at the elite level. No-one would disagree that Australians are usually good value for money, and it's extremely unfortunate for those caught up in all of this. I think it's very arguable from a work permit perspective though, that a British rider couldn't be found to do the job of a sub-6 point rider in the sport's second tier, far less third tier. Of course such a strict interpretation puts the likes of Newcastle and Edinburgh (amongst others) in a difficult situation, but that's the case with many struggling businesses in the UK that rely on immigrant labour.

You can make that argument for any specialised industry, and speedway is not of any significant economic consequence to the UK so should not expect any special privileges. The 'elite' level of a professional sport is one thing, but I think it could be easily argued that there shouldn't be a single work permit rider in the second and third divisions of British speedway whilst there are British riders who can competently ride a speedway bike, regardless of whether their face happens to fits with the local promoter. Of course, it's interesting how principles go out the window when it's affects one's own team/business...