The Official 2010 Football & World Cup Thread - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Atkingani wrote:

Well, I think it's time to start one, no?

In this moment Argentina and Brazil are playing for Conmebol (South America League) qualifyings... let's wait to see what happens.

Meanwhile, we had several games in Europe today. My surprise was to know that Liedson, a dude I just watched last year playing here, anchored in Portugal, got quickly a new nationality and scored an important goal for the Lusitanians.

Any more comments, folks???

Due in no small measure to both UEFA and FIFA's bumbling largesse, nationality now appears to be negotiable. There are scores of Brazilians currently plying their trade in Qatar (attracted by the high wages offered by the clubs) who are shamelessly induced by cash to become naturalised Qataris and therefore eligible to play for the national team. Although considerably less transparent, the situation in France where their leagues have many North African players from the former colonies, it could be argued that many of the most distinguished French internationals ain't French at all:

Patrick Vieira was born in Senegal
Jocelyn Angloma was born in Guadaloupe
Ibrahim Bas was born in Senegal
Basile Boli was born in the Ivory Coast
Jean-Alain Boumsong was born in Cameroon
Pascal Chimbonda was born in Guadaloupe etc etc (the list goes on)

I think the current international eligibility rules are hopelessly convoluted, with various yawning loopholes created by national associations who claim that playing for a country below a certain age or in a non-competitive match somehow supplants the concept of 'place of birth' or the player's original choice.

Add to this the bureaucratic bolt-holes of ancestry i.e. your grandparents, parents, best friends, drinking buddys, golf partners nationalities and you got yerself one mighty big can of worms for sure.

Although all the UK nations have been guilty of assimilating 'ringers' into their teams over the years, it is perhaps the Republic of Ireland who take the proverbial biscuit for such expediency. They had a striker called Tony Cascarino from Kent, England who was deemed eligible for the Republic by virtue of an Irish grandfather. There was no Irish grandfather, it was a complete tissue of whoppers confirmed as such by Cascarino's subsequent autobiography. People in Britain used to joke that the initials of the Irish Football Association (FAI) stood for 'Found Another Irishman'