A few of you have asked some questions about Deivids Sarkanis visa application and when we might see this approved. We wanted to give some clarity on some of the questions which have been raised to us:
- When did MKL apply for a sponsor’s licence and when did we receive it: we applied for this and received it in summer 2021, and renewed it in May 2022 (it’s an annual renewal) so it has been in place since summer 2021
- When did we apply for Deivids’ visa: we started the process soon after Deivids had signed. In July 2022 we applied for his IHUK governing body sponsorship, and then in early August 2022 we applied for his International Sportsperson’s Visa. At that point, the lead time was reported as 3 weeks. His flights were booked and paid for for August 30th.
In summary, we are now nearly 9 weeks into a 3 weeks process.
As this process has gone on, we have been dismayed by the turnaround time in our application. It’s been very hard to get a simple progress update from the Home Office on this. We have made the following representations:
- Repeatedly checked the online portal to ensure our application had not outstanding issues
- Paid for an update via the priority email service on 24th September with a turn around of 5 business days and we’ve still no response almost 3 weeks later
- Paid for a phone based update which confirmed our application is full and complete, but they would not give a timescale
- Contacted the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration who said they were unable to help in individual cases
- Contacted Ben Everitt (MP for Milton Keynes North) who’s office has raised this urgently with the Home Office
- Attempted via a couple of further informal channels to gain an update and progress this application
We’re trying our very best to gain this approval. There’s nothing we want more than for Deivids to pull on that number 7 jersey and get out there on the ice. We are absolutely trying everything we can think of to move this forwards.
