Tyson Keats was eligible to play, London Welsh will tell RFU
The Rugby Paper understands that the club will underline at Tuesday’s RFU competitions hearing that they believe that New Zealand-born Keats, 31, was eligible for all nine Premiership games he appeared in.
This challenges speculation that a registration technicality makes it almost inevitable that London Welsh, who are embroiled in a relegation battle with Sale and London Irish, will be docked enough points to make them certainties to go down.
The club’s case is strengthened considerably by the fact that they brought the issue to the attention of the RFU after conducting the second of two internal investigations into Keats’ registration in February, rather than the RFU calling the club to account after detecting a registration flaw.
London Welsh have accepted that Keats was wrongly classified as ‘English’ in his registration category, when he was in fact in the UK on an ‘ancestral visa’, on the basis of having a British grandparent. However, the ancestral visa still entitled Keats to seek employment here, including having the same eligibility as any English-born professional rugby player to play in the Premiership.
It has emerged also that because Keats, right, has never played for New Zealand, and is available to play for England under the grandparent ruling, he is also eligible for the England Qualified Player (EQP) payments made by the RFU to Premiership. London Welsh are therefore entitled to claim EQP payments for Keats legitimately.
London Welsh are expected to challenge vigorously any suggestion that they sought deliberately to circumvent any eligibility rules, or garner any unfair advantage over their Premiership opponents because of Keats being registered, wrongly, as English.
The detail of how Keats came to be registered in the wrong category – even though he shares the same eligibility to play in the Premiership, and for England, as any English-born player – is the subject of a separate disciplinary hearing involving Mike Scott, London Welsh’s former rugby manager.
Scott has been charged under RFU Rule 5.12 for ‘conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Union or the Game’. That case will be heard at a later date, according to the RFU.
NICK CAIN
