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Red tape leaves Lyon's Semi Radradra stuck in Fiji – report
By Liam Heagney
Visa red tape has left Semi Radradra stuck in Fiji and he could now miss the start of the new 2024/25 Top 14 season for Lyon, who have a September 7 opener away to Montpellier. The 32-year-old midfielder, who moved back to France last season after a three-year stint in England with Bristol, played for Fiji versus the All Blacks on July 20 in San Diego.
Following that game in the United States, he returned to the Pacific Islands but a paperwork issue regarding his son has meant that Radradra still hasn’t returned to France 11 days before his club’s opening game.
It’s believed that he thought he could travel back to France without a visa for his son but boarding was denied and a race is now on to provide the necessary paperwork. A L’Equipe report read: “Less than two weeks before the resumption of the Top 14, Semi Radradra has still not returned to France.
“The Fijian centre is stuck in his native country due to a visa problem for his son. The fault lies in a French administration imbroglio that is delaying the return of the Lyon player.
“His son, less than a year old and born on French soil, is listed on his father's passport, which implied that he did not need a visa to go to France. Except that when leaving Fiji where Radradra spent his holidays, boarding was refused to the son of the Fijian international.
“A visa was ultimately necessary. The application, which is transiting via Singapore for administrative reasons, was sent urgently but the processing time can take up to 10 days. Radradra will be back in France on Friday at the earliest but he is in any case expected before the resumption of the Top 14. An update will be made upon his arrival on his physical condition.”
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Latest Comments
Yeah I actually think it was Havili that took it off him. Not bad himself, but on the advice of Razor, who didn't even pursue it and use Havili on a split bench as 10 cover?
One huge cluster#$@% but I think you could be right, I liked O'Connor when he won at the Reds and I've just got a funny feeling he's going to dominate Super Rugby, kinda like how Cooper came back to the Wallabies as an experienced head and spat out South Africa. I think James could do the same with the Blues and other Aus sides. I'd really love Rivez to get a lot of minutes though.
Go to commentsI rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.
He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.
The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).
The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.
The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).
It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.
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