School work undertaken by Rochdale Lacrosse Club in doubt after Home Office concerns

Rochdale Lacrosse

The work that Rochdale Lacrosse Club does within local schools could be in doubt after the Home Office advised English Lacrosse that they have identified concerns with the sponsorship license to certificate non-European workers to coach lacrosse in the UK.

The concerns that have been raised are that English Lacrosse is operating as an employment business, not a national governing body and that the female lacrosse coaches employed do not coach at a high enough standard.

Overseas coaches have been delivering lacrosse in Rochdale since 1982 and the club currently delivers lacrosse to 12 out of 70 primary schools in the borough – twice as many as last year.

A spokesperson for Rochdale Lacrosse Club said: “In terms of Rochdale Lacrosse Club, and indeed most lacrosse clubs in England that rely on the high quality coaches that come in from the US each year, is that should we not be able to deliver lacrosse into schools this year they may take other services, which would significantly damage the work we have done to develop an understanding and eventual participation in lacrosse.

“The most significant developments in lacrosse at the moment are the adapted Under 10s game and ladies field lacrosse development. This of all years was one of our best opportunities to extend the work we do to a wider audience and engage more young people in an exciting sport.

“While we are still hopeful ELA will resolve their issues, it is unlikely this would be before the end of September. In the short term we are committed to a sizable expenditure to qualify some of our senior players, who may be available to deliver sessions into schools.

“We aim to continue our delivery, as to fail to do so would put our program back by up to three years.

“Schools have to deliver on physical participation, they don’t have to deliver lacrosse but we have to convince them that it achieves the goals they need to meet, which we believe it does. It develops skill, coordination, teamwork and builds fitness, ticks all of the boxes and is more exciting than the run of the mill sports on offer.

“In addition, if kids get into lacrosse they have thousands of times more chance of playing at a county or national level in view of the smaller numbers in participation.

“Rochdale develops top quality players. We have in our coaching team past England players - representing England is a goal many young people would like to reach and lacrosse can bring that goal much closer than most sports.”

In a statement issued by English Lacrosse, it read: “English Lacrosse has been advised by the UK Visa and Immigration (UKVI) that they have identified concerns with the sponsorship license used to certificate non-European workers to coach lacrosse in the UK. 

“English Lacrosse has been allowed 20 working days to respond to the UKVI and English Lacrosse staff are doing all they can to resolve the situation, however, it is an extremely serious circumstance for the governing body to deal with."