WITH the country marching towards Brexit with all the confidence and authority of a team managed by Jackie McNamara, it’s fair to say that there’s a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the future of the UK. From borders to customs unions, no one seems to have a clear vision of what post-Brexit Britain will look like. It feels like the UK’s departure from the EU has encroached in virtually every aspect of our domestic lives and sadly, Scottish football is not exempt from this.

Under the governance of current SFA laws, Brexit will have a fairly serious impact on the SPFL. As it stands, people born in the EU are free to move between member states without any need for visas or work permits to secure work. It’s the same with footballers – as long as you’ve got an EU passport, you’re welcome to move freely around Europe and play for any team you’d like.

It’s a little more complex for players from other parts of the world, who must apply for a Governing Body Endorsement (GBE). This then gets sent over to the Home Office, who subsequently grant players work permits to play.

Once we leave the EU - until new legislation is passed by the SFA - this will become the status quo for any player born outside of the UK and Ireland who wants to move to Scotland. This might not sound like too big an issue, but the reality is that could have a far-reaching effect on Scottish football.

First off, there are three conditions that must be met if a player’s GBE application is to be successful. Firstly, they must have taken part in at least 75% of competitive matches for their national side over the last two years that they’ve been available for. This clause also comes with the caveat that the country in question’s FIFA average ranking over the previous two years must be equal to or above 70th place. Lastly, the club they’re joining must be a member of the SPFL.

At least the last one’s easy. And the second clause isn’t too bad either; it’s not very often we see a player from Liechtenstein or El Salvador turn up in Dundee, after all. But the first clause can prove problematic.

Celtic and Rangers have their fair share of internationals, but neither squad is full of foreign-born players that play in three quarters of their national side’s fixtures. Further down the table, the chances of teams like St Johnstone or Livingston signing a full international who plays regularly for a top 70 national team seem about as remote as Craig Levein going a full season without winding up an opposition manager.

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed that there are currently some players plying their trade in Scotland who do not meet these criteria, yet here they are. That’s because, in keeping with the SFA’s inimitable style, these mandatory conditions aren’t actually mandatory at all. If a club wants to sign a player from outside the EU that hasn’t featured regularly for their national team, the club can request a hearing from an independent panel.

In order to get by the panel, the buying club must prove that either the player “is of the highest calibre” or that they “will contribute significantly to the development of the game at the top level in Scotland”, according to the SFA. Quite how Celtic managed to convince anyone that this applied to Du Wei is mystifying and revealing in equal measure.

Basically, it’s an incredibly subjective set of criteria. So long as a club can state their case confidently, it appears that just about anyone can be awarded a GBE. It means that putting an estimate on player restrictions is an exercise in futility: there’s simply no way to know who will or won’t meet these criteria.

If these tests are applied more stringently in the future, however, then the landscape of Scottish football would change dramatically. Clubs in the Championship downwards would only be able to sign players from the UK and Ireland. Going by the SFA’s assertion that players would need to contribute significantly to the league, it seems as if only foreign-born players who would feature regularly would be moving to Scotland. Reserves and squad players would require a British or an Irish passport.

Of the 306 senior players currently in the Scottish Premiership, 166 come from overseas. If Brexit goes ahead as (sort of) planned and the SFA don’t introduce new legislation before any grace period with the EU comes to an end, Scottish clubs will be in a spot of bother. Bringing in players from outside the EU is already relatively uncommon at many clubs, and if continental Europeans are afforded the same status as non-EU nationals then clubs will surely struggle to bring foreign players in at the current rate.

There is a flip side to this of course – there will be places up for grabs in teams all throughout Scotland, with only British and Irish players eligible to fill the void in the majority of cases. We could see more homegrown talents given opportunities at Scottish clubs, which can surely only be a good thing for the long term development of the national side. But, as is the case with every aspect of Brexit, we just don’t know how it will pan out. Probably not very well, though.