Sorry yeah slight typo in my post, I didn't mean Blessing was the 'only ever', I meant only one at the time Kolpak ended. Jarvis was of course on a Kolpak contract too previously.ZIMDOGGY wrote: ↑Tue May 11, 2021 6:00 pmMost white zimbos under 30 cannot get an English or Irish visa at all.secretzimbo wrote: ↑Tue May 11, 2021 1:23 pmThe white population is much lower than that now. At the moment we are about 20,000 or less. To put that in perspective its just over 0.1% of the country. About 17k of those are concentrated in 2 districts of Harare as well, so elsewhere in the country its an even more tiny percentage.farhanhussan wrote: ↑Tue May 11, 2021 1:10 pmthanks nice info.
It should have been more representation of whites in Zim cricket
management as the cricket legacy in Zim has been with white players.so game would have been in the better state. My guess is 95 % cricketing affairs are run by black management. Further with outflux of whites during Mugabe regime and farmers issues, I m not sure how many ex white cricketers are staying in Zim?Zim white population at present is estimated around 50k. Let's hope a positive change more of more white coaches in franchise teams as well as players with the ending if kolpak deal.
Kolpak isn't relevant. The only Zim cricketer to ever have a Kolpak deal was Blessing, who is black. Most of the white Zimbos didn't need Kolpak as they can get British passports (*or easy access to family visas) anyway (It's different in SA where a big proportion of the whites have Dutch or Afrikaner heritage rather than British. In Zim whites are overwhelmingly British heritage except for a few Greeks and others).
100% we need ZC to have a better relationship with the white community. We need to try to retain at least some of the big 4 in the system after they retire. We need to try and stop losing young white talent. All of that yep. Agree with it all.
But also we are seeing real high class black talent emerging, probably of better quality and in greater numbers than ever before in Zimbabwe. The country has changed and so ZC and the racial makeup of players is mirroring that. We need the best people in the game, and we need to retain them, regardless of skin colour.
They are too far removed from English lineage.
You need a parent born there to be an English ancestry visa holder, or a grandparent for Ireland.
It was spoken about a year ago where we looked into it further and we couldn’t find many of the kids that qualified.
Nick Welch for instance had a few issues and may have well been a black Ndebele.
BT I’m pretty sure is in this boat and was a kolpak player.
I'm only 34 and I qualify for a UK ancestry visa through my mother! Yay! Haha. I thought grandparents were okay though? Maybe it changed to parents. No idea - UK immigration is complicated enough, and then throw ECB eligibility stuff on top and its absolute minefield.
It's presumably a good thing for Zim Cricket if less people qualify for that route in the future though.