The England & Wales Cricket Board is planning to crack down on the number of Kolpak players flooding into county cricket when it draws up its next contract with the counties.

The ECB will later this summer draft a new memorandum of understanding with the counties and the influx of Kolpak players this year will be part of those discussions. South Africa’s Marchant de Lange became the 11th Kolpak to sign for a county this winter when he joined Glamorgan on Monday as overseas cricketers look to exploit the loophole before Brexit is expected to close it off.

The Kolpak issue has been discussed by the ECB’s cricket committee and at board level and is understood to have had discussions with the Government about the situation in the past. Tom Harrison, the chief executive, will seek further talks post-Brexit. However, there is little that can be done legally while Britain is still a member of the European Union. Instead the ECB can incentivise counties financially as part of the next MoU for fielding England qualified players, making it in turn less attractive to sign Kolpaks, or even increase the financial deductions levied for picking Kolpak players.

Kolpaks flooded into county cricket in the mid-2000s after Slovakian handball player Maros Kolpak successfully appealed to the European Court of Justice arguing that as a resident of a country with a trade agreement with the EU he should have the same employment rights as an EU citizen.