citizens. The case was referred by the German higher court to the European Court of Justice, for a determination on whether the Association Agreement between Slovakia and the European Union provided equal rights for Slovak workers who were living and working legally within the EU. The Court ruled in favour of Kolpak. Thus the Kolpak Ruling declares that citizens of countries which have applicable Association Agreements with the EU, and who are lawfully working within an EU country, have equal rights to work as EU citizens, and cannot have restrictions such as quotas placed upon them. Such countries include those within the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states, such as South Africa, Jamaica and Zimbabwe. Implications for sport Cricket In practice, the decision allowed English county cricket clubs to employ the services of a multitude of overseas cricketers, especially from South Africa. Prior to the Kolpak ruling ECB rules had limited each county to one overseas (non-EU) professional. County cricket clubs could already employ any number of EU residents under the Bosman ruling. However, there were no other Test cricket nations within the EU except (from 2017) Ireland; this explains why it was Kolpak, not Bosman, which had the significant impact on English county cricket. The largest group of countries with an association agreement with the EU is the ACP Group of States, which includes South Africa, Zimbabwe, and many of the nations that supply the West Indies cricket team. The English and Wales Cricket Board ruled that a player must not have represented their own country for over twelve months in order to qualify for Kolpak status, but after South African Jacques Rudolph signed for Yorkshire, they admitted that this rule was unenforceable. In an effort to combat the influx of Kolpak players, the ECB linked the central payments made to counties to the number of English qualified players who play for that county. That meant that every game a Kolpak player played instead of an English qualified player, a county received £1,100 less from the ECB. Because that was classed as a way of encouraging counties to develop young players who could go on to play for England, rather than a restrictive quota system, it was legal under the EU rules. However, the system did not result in a significant drop in the number of Kolpak players, because counties chose to continue to sign foreign players,