THAT RESIDENTIAL CLAUSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 68, 11 June 1927, Page 12

THAT RESIDENTIAL CLAUSE

WHAT THE LAYMAN WANTS TO KNOW By G. H. PONDER While the controversy over what has become known as the Brown-Davidson case is at its height, a study of the position as it presents itself to the man in the street should be interesting. In the first place, the decision of the New Zealand Council not to grant transfers to English clubs for these players probably comes as a surprise to the average layman who is not fully conversant with the terms of the contract entered into between the English Rugby League and the New Zealand League. How are such applications dealt with, and what is the procedure? If this question has been asked once, it has been asked a hundred times. It is really plain sailing once one gets the hang of it. Each club in New Zealand is affiliated to a League, and each League in its turn is affiliated to the New Zealand Council. A player making application for a transfer abroad must have his application dealt with in the order named. Hence the reason why the New Zealand Council was in a position to offset something a minor body—in this instance, the City Club —had already acceded to. What does this decision of the New Zealand Rugby League Council really mean? Simply this: that neither Lou Brown or Ben Davidson may play for any English club until such time as they have resided in England or Wales for a period of two years from the date of their arrival there. This state of affairs has been brought about by a contract between England and New Zealand, known in League circles as “The Ban,” which provides that no player who has played League football in New Zealand may play for any English club until he has fulfilled the required residential qualification. INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT ENDANGERED On this ..decision the New Zealand Rugby League Council rests far more than the mere fact of not granting transfers to these individual players. In short, an international viewpoint is endangered, inasmuch that the English club affected by this decision — the Wigan Club —will in all probability be anxious to have the ban raised immediately it can conveniently convince its fellow clubs of the need for such action. As mentioned in a previous article, this was only staved off by New Zealand’s vote during the tour of the New Zealand team. Unless an international board of control is set up in the very near future, I feel that the Wigan Cinb will quickly prevail upon other English clubs to sign a “round robin” to enable them to force the hand of the English Rugby League Council and subsequently have them break a sacred contract with the New Zealand League, That this is a vexed question even in England is borne out by the fact that one of the “fathers of League football in England—J. B. Cooke, of Wakefield —resigned his position from the English Rugby League Council just prior to the New Zealand team’s arival, because the E.R.L. Council endeavoured to scrap the contract relative to the two years’ residential qualification.

The general effect of the New Zealand Council’s decision should have a sobering effect, however, on any hastv action of the parent body in England. I firmly believe that those men of foresight in the English Council will endeavour to hasten the formation of ar International Board of Control between England, Australia and New Zealand, and thus offset those radicals who desire to fill their coffers at the expense of colonial clubs. A SERIOUS POSITION If this International Board of Control is not brought into being immediately, and such clubs as Wigan get their way, it will be hard to predict just how far it will affect the future of the New Zealand League. To say the least, the relationship between here and England will be gravely strained, especially as the English body, to which the New Zealand League is affiliated, has a duty to perform in preserving the unanimous wishes of the New Zealand Council that the ban be not lifted. There is one other point that needs explaining in this case, and it is this: The Auckland League granted these players transfers, provided that the New Zealand Council concurred, meaning that if the New Zealand Council wished to assume a prerogative and privilege vested in it by its constitution, it could have given a transfer to each of the players by waiving the two years’ residential clause in respect to these individual players only. Apparently, however, the council has been guided by the recent happening in respect to Lou Brown on his return to New Zealand after having played for Wigan under this special granting of the transfer just referred to. Some excitement v/as caused on that occasion by the City Club threatening to withdraw from the code. It is interesting to note the City Club again backing these players and appealing to the New Zealand Council on their behalf. In the meantime, as L. Brown played for the Wigan Club as a professional player, and was on its register, it would be interesting to know whether he has been signed off that club, or whether he has been playing football here while still actually an affiliated member of the Wigan Club.