Time for FIFA to do something about this.
in [World Football]
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From: El Kot on 28 May 2010 13:59 MH wrote: > El Kot wrote: >> MH wrote: >>> Abubakr wrote: >>>> Regulations need to come in to stop established professionals from >>>> changing nationalities. One way to do this would be to have any player >>>> registering a professional contract nominate his/her nationality and >>>> that nationality stays with the player for life and cannot be changed. >>> >>> That is a little draconian, as they are signing professional >>> contracts at 17 or 18, and have no idea at that point how their >>> careers, marriages, etc. are going to develop. >>> >>>> This still allows juniors to choose between countries that they would >>>> like to represent in international football but it stops third rate >>>> (and at time even first and second rate) Brazilians and the odd >>>> Argentine from playing for the likes of Croatia, Portugal, Germany, >>>> Italy etc... >>> >>> How is this a problem? It doesn't weaken Brazil or Argentina >>> substantially, and only strengthens the other teams a tiny amount. >>> >>> I would be more concerned (as Bruce points out in another post) about >>> the potential for developing football countries losing potential star >>> players, who end up sitting on the bench for one of the bigger teams. >>> There must be dozens of players with only a handful of caps for >>> France, the Netherlands, or England, for example, that could have >>> made a real impact with Senegal, Jamaica, Surinam, Trinidad, Ivory >>> coast, Morocco, etc. etc. >>> >>> I think the FIFA rules are fine as they are: they recognize that >>> players can and do have multiple national identities,and they don't >>> make decisions made at an early age (eg. to play U20) irrevocable. >>> On the other hand, they do force adult players to make one final >>> choice about which country to play for. >> >> And that's not good. Why should they make one choice? They should >> be able to change as often as needed. Given that the active playing >> time in soccer is not that long, compared to some other lesser sports, >> it won't be too often. >> >> >>> If a 30 year old Brazilian has lived in Belgium for 10 years, playing >>> all his football there, has become a Belgian citizen through marriage >>> and naturalization, and has never been called into a Brazil squad, I >>> can't see what earthly objection anyone could have to his playing for >>> Belgium. >> >> Exactly. Although I feel that the residency requirement should be >> lowered. One year seems quite adequate to me. >> > > One year seems very short. Are there any countries that allow > immigrants to become citizens after a residence period of only one year? > > In most cases that I am aware of, it is 3 to 5 years of residency after > becoming a permanent resident - even if you have married a citizen. Well then, let it be the citizenship period for the host country, but not more. As soon as he becomes a citizen, he should be able to play. I think it highly improper that FIFA can have a say on something that should be a matter between citizens and their countries. I'm even liberal to the extent where I think a player with dual citizenship should be able to play for any of his countries and switch at will, without any impediment, as often as he wants. -- No, no, you can't e-mail me with the nono.
From: MH on 28 May 2010 18:34
El Kot wrote: > MH wrote: >> El Kot wrote: >>> MH wrote: >>>> Abubakr wrote: >>>>> Regulations need to come in to stop established professionals from >>>>> changing nationalities. One way to do this would be to have any player >>>>> registering a professional contract nominate his/her nationality and >>>>> that nationality stays with the player for life and cannot be changed. >>>> >>>> That is a little draconian, as they are signing professional >>>> contracts at 17 or 18, and have no idea at that point how their >>>> careers, marriages, etc. are going to develop. >>>> >>>>> This still allows juniors to choose between countries that they would >>>>> like to represent in international football but it stops third rate >>>>> (and at time even first and second rate) Brazilians and the odd >>>>> Argentine from playing for the likes of Croatia, Portugal, Germany, >>>>> Italy etc... >>>> >>>> How is this a problem? It doesn't weaken Brazil or Argentina >>>> substantially, and only strengthens the other teams a tiny amount. >>>> >>>> I would be more concerned (as Bruce points out in another post) >>>> about the potential for developing football countries losing >>>> potential star players, who end up sitting on the bench for one of >>>> the bigger teams. >>>> There must be dozens of players with only a handful of caps for >>>> France, the Netherlands, or England, for example, that could have >>>> made a real impact with Senegal, Jamaica, Surinam, Trinidad, Ivory >>>> coast, Morocco, etc. etc. >>>> >>>> I think the FIFA rules are fine as they are: they recognize that >>>> players can and do have multiple national identities,and they don't >>>> make decisions made at an early age (eg. to play U20) irrevocable. >>>> On the other hand, they do force adult players to make one final >>>> choice about which country to play for. >>> >>> And that's not good. Why should they make one choice? They should >>> be able to change as often as needed. Given that the active playing >>> time in soccer is not that long, compared to some other lesser >>> sports, it won't be too often. >>> >>> >>>> If a 30 year old Brazilian has lived in Belgium for 10 years, >>>> playing all his football there, has become a Belgian citizen through >>>> marriage and naturalization, and has never been called into a Brazil >>>> squad, I can't see what earthly objection anyone could have to his >>>> playing for Belgium. >>> >>> Exactly. Although I feel that the residency requirement should be >>> lowered. One year seems quite adequate to me. >>> >> >> One year seems very short. Are there any countries that allow >> immigrants to become citizens after a residence period of only one year? >> >> In most cases that I am aware of, it is 3 to 5 years of residency >> after becoming a permanent resident - even if you have married a citizen. > > Well then, let it be the citizenship period for the host country, > but not more. That makes sense. As soon as he becomes a citizen, he should be able to > play. I think it highly improper that FIFA can have a say on something > that should be a matter between citizens and their countries. > I'm even liberal to the extent where I think a player with dual > citizenship should be able to play for any of his countries and switch > at will, without any impediment, as often as he wants. That is an interesting concept, but it does run up against the problem that certain countries do not acknowledge dual citizenship, whereas others have no problem with multiple citizenship. The US and Germany don't generally recognize dual citizenships, for instance. Witness the case of poor Tam N'Saliwa who had to give up his Canadian citizenship in order to become German, to stop taking up a nonEU spot on his team. This left in a legal limbo where he could not play for any national team under current FIFA rules because he had already been capped for Canada. The end effect of your proposal would be that some players would be able to change countries they played for easily and at will, whereas others would not. That would be difficult for FIFA to legislate around. I assume the concern about changing nationalities regularly is that it could become commercialized -- Emirates buying up a bunch of Brazilians for instance, which would sort of undermine what international football is supposedly about. > |