If they've been here on student or working holiday visas, both of these allow work to undertaken up to a certain point. And believe me, there are a lot of international students abusing the system and working full time.

It may be a case that the interpretation has been incorrect. The work component of these visas is (someone please correct me if possible) is up two 20 hours a week or meant to be on a casual basis (tatty picking or something) and not meant to be the main reason for being here.

I'm sure somebody who has signed up for a proper college course and is attending and taking it seriously would be able play part-time professional rugby league if it meant a couple of training sessions and a game every week which didn't interfere with their studies. Probably the same for a working holiday visa. However, they were probably training full time and just signed up for a course to get the documentation for registration but never bothered with the course. That is deception.

It sounds like somebody somewhere stuffed up with the advice. The players must have agents who know the score. It may be that in the lower leagues there has been a lot of abuse of the system but now there has been a step change in visa enforcement and Immigration service has decided to make an example of Celtic.

Oh I must have dozed off when Celtic won the Challenge Cup and topped the league - silly me.

Idiot.

You have to look at the RFL as well as Celtic. Don't they have to ratify all players?

This is a bad look, but I for one hope Celtic survive and prosper.

A possibility for the remainder of the season may be get young players on loan. At this stage of the season I suspect a number of clubs have a few players who are unlikely to be picked this year who'd welcome the chance for some first team experience. Has to be better than throwing a bunch of kids into the fray.

How can having players in the country illegally not make those players ineligible? They have put the club at an unfair advantage.

To put it into context, Hull were fined £100k for fielding an ineligible player in the cup for 2 games. I fail to see how this is not more serious than that when they had been playing for years in some circumstances.

I'd be very surprised if the RFL don't have a registration sub section on eligibility through appropriate work visa.

Either way the CC are looking very shoddy and what with their change of grounds, lack of decent recruitment and clear lack of money, their first season is hardly setting a good standard for the future.

Will we have another 10+ years of "building" like London?

Strange one this isn't it. The UK border agency allowed them into the country in the first place so they were not considered here illegally in the first instance or they would have been sent straight back. It's not as though they have been secretive about what they are doing here as they are in the papers and on TV every week of the season. Some of them were playing here last year too so again it;s not as though there is any change there. In order to take a job here you have to provide certain documentation which also goes to the HMRC as they will have been paying tax and NI in this country and even they didn't notice a problem for months. Something very strange happened here I think.

5 SL clubs in West Yorkshire alone, which that motorway runs through, says different. Then there's the clubs in lower league RL from that area. All have the same [inational[/i demographic. Leeds and Wigan cannot really lord it over everyone else on that score. I suppose Leeds, with being a bigger city, could argue that they'd have a better [iClass[/i demographic, but not a [inational[/i demographic. Wigan can't even argue that one.

Wigan has the same National demographic as their Leigh friends, as well as the other clubs which surround them in this area. Whether they're a bigger club, or not, isn't the question. Having a massively inflated view of your own importance doesn't count either.

The old saying:
[i'Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'[/i comes to mind.

Yes but they won't, so there will still be 2 teams on Humberside !!

Its a disgrace and someone s head at RED HALL should roll, but it wont and CEltic will get a points deduction which means nothing ,a slapped wrist, and carry on, in a town where 96% of its inhabitats havent even heard of them.
They will finish bottom again next year and struggle to find a decent following wherever they move to.
London kept moving and changing names and it still have a smalll fan base because of their location.
SL has 14 teams in and 4 have stadiums that are nt fit. Will THE RFL boot any out in 2011, I think not.
They may put Widnes in if a team were to fold or theres enough funds form SKY to have 15 teams.
WE can only hold that we have a great year next season as we have to get to a GF or win the NRC to apply in the Autumn for a Franchise. If two teams were to go, I d say we,d have an outside chance.

I understand that it was pretty common for clubs outside SL to employ overseas players on working holiday visas as it neatly avoided many of the complications associated with getting a full visa. That all changed this season with the new rules and is the reason why a number of players in the Championship have been unable to get into the country even if they were part way through a contract and had been playing here previously.

The Crusaders website states that the problems found by UKBA were with visas from previous seasons, so it may be that this practise was technically illegal all the time and simply not picked up on by the authorities. If that is the case, then the Crusaders and their players have not been doing anything that many other clubs have not also done. It's just that in their case the UKBA were tipped off and they were caught out.

It's entirely possible that some other clubs may have players in a similar position.

Looking at the limited information available, it appears that the players concerned had valid visas and work permits for this season. That means that by the strict letter of the rules they were eligible to play this season. The RFL will have received documents to that effect before registering them.

They became ineligible the instant that the UKBA deemed them to be in the country illegally due to past visa irregularities. Since they have had their contracts terminated immediately and are on their way out of the country, their registration status now becomes irrelevant.

Of course, if the UKBA investigation finds that the club knew that these players were here illegally due to the prior visa discrepancies then that would put the situation in a different light. I imagine that's why the RFL are refusing to comment at this time - until the UKBA completes the investigation it's impossible to say with certainty whether any RFL rules have been broken or not.

Also, as I pointed out above, it's entirely possible that some other clubs may be in the same position. If the UKBA decide to investigate RL as a whole then this could get extremely messy - the visa rules are so complicated that it's easy to make a genuine mistake.

I hope ukba do a full in depth review of every over seas player in the national leagues and sl. It would be interesting to find out just how big an issue this is and how many teams have been playing people under "loopholes" etc.

I don't think the flatcappers would be very happy if the moral high ground was ripped from beneath them.

[size=200POST OF THE WEEK!![/size

It strikes me that there are 2 types of Rugby League fan (on these boards, anyway)
1. There are the Fans that love the game. These people watch RL regardless of the division or competition, in the snow wind and rain and travel great distances and spending loads of money to do so. They may well support 1 main team (in any division), but the game is more important. These fans are split into 2 subsections of Pro/anti expansionist, but the good of the game will always come first.
2. There are the bitter & twisted bunch of t055ers who seem to get some satisfaction gloating over trouble at another club. They, in the most part, seem to reside in small towns that used to have great RL teams and bring shame to our game, whilst ignoring the shortcomings of their own clubs. The ignore the previous points deductions, loss of fans by 48% over 4 years, finishing rock bottom, winning 1 game all year and having an average attendance less than London. Instead, they like to say "told you so" when in reality they did no such thing. What they did do in July 2008 was spit their dummy's out because they, with their 100 year head start, were overlooked for a new team......progress does not sit well with these "fans".

As I understand it, this was a well used loophole and fully expect most of those who struggled to get the visas THIS year will be in the same boat.
We are the first victims of this retrospective law change. I fully expect more to follow.

Think we should really hurt Celtic on Saturday if we play like we did against Castleford. Looking at a ton imo.

why dont u other clubs give them a few loaners

I just read a hilarious post from a scouser Championship One team supporter.

He favours expansion only within rugby league areas.

I'd like to think the education system in widnes is a bit better than that.

Consider the meaning of the word EXPANSION scally.

There are a lot of bitter old flatcappers who are creaming their pants today over our ill fortune and sticking the boot in for our sheer TEMERITY in trying to adopt THEIR game.

Admittedly our management seem to be class A buffoons and admittedly we have been caught out by a retrospective law change.

But none of our players have beaten up or glassed their girlfriends and none of them have been caught doing drugs or taking steroids.

But bring the whingeing and griping and gloating and pontificating on.

We are Welsh. We've been fighting each other for 1500 years. give it yer best shot yer black pudding eating pigeon fanciers.


DISCLAIMER.
This is not aimed at those many decent RL fans who have offered us moral support as we (try to) progress in this game or even those who oppose our inclusion with reasoned argument. It is aimed solely at the whiners, the whingers and the bigots who are afraid to see the game expand beyond the North of England.

Don't underestimate the fact that there may be senior staff at UKBA who are Yawnion aficionados from Wales who have decided to bugger it up for the Crusaders. There are so many infringements of visas that UKBA can pick and chose who they target and leave their favorites alone. If your number comes up then you're toast.

I smell a rat here.

The rules probably have been applied differently especially to certain sports

I would suggest that if the rules were applied with the same intent at ALL the RFL clubs then a lot of players would be gone, also Union and if applied to Premier moronball there would be no teams at all!!!

But hey since when has sport ever been a fair game with a level playing field?

I see what you did there, quite witty

I trust the mods on here will delete this potentially libellous slur on a hard-working public body

..........and redirect the blame back to the bitter and twisted board of a club that didn't get a licence