The Borders and Immigration Agency, part of the Home Office, has launched the new points based migration system. The promotional campaign makes much of the idea that the new system is based on the Australian points system.

The SSA would be happy is this was true when it comes to sport. Unfortunately for us the policymakers have decided to ignore the needs of sport by lumping all sportspeople into the category of "workers" rather than "visitors".

We are urgently pressing the UK Government to live up to the claims made in its advertising campaign by introducing an Australian style sports visa. This would:

1. Allow amateur sportspeople entry for the purpose of competing without sponsorship and a visa free of charge

2. Allow all sportspeople coming to the UK to compete in events entry without sponsorship for stays of less than three months.

Under the new system, everyone inviting non-EU athletes into the UK for events will be required to apply for a license in order to be able to "sponsor" competitors. They must also take on substantial levels of responsibility for notifying the authorities should their guests change their travel plans or fail to show up when expected.  There will also be considerable burdens placed on sportspeople by the need to acquire biometric ID before visting the UK.

The proposed cost of the visa required is also higher than that of a visitor's visa (around £99 compared with £65) which seems unfair to amateur sportspeople in particular.

As well as the need to plan visits well in advance in order to satisfy the new rules there will be additional costs, as yet unspecified, which may be of concern to organisations hosting large scale events.

Please contact Chris Robison at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  for further information.

A full Home Office briefing on the points based migration systems can be found at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/command-points-based-migration