Player Eligibility and Switching National Teams: Case Studies & General Discussion

OK, according to this FAQ (link) in this part (link) of the FIFA website, they require at least five tangible documents to proceed with the change of association. This implies that they must maintain a file related to each request, and some type of document must be produced to respond it and be included in the file.

Since these specific files seems not to be available to an interested third party, it raise the suspicion that such paper trail is not properly keep and, consequently, this waiver could be granted or denied without the need of any supporting documents, if it suits the interest of FIFA.

Furthermore, in the FIFA webpage mentioned (link) you could access resolutions awarded by the Player Status' Committee regarding other matters, but not one related to the change of association. Why this omission?

 

So FIFA can take action after all regarding an ineligible player (Nelson Cabrera, Bolivia), even if the claim came more than 24 hours after the match? (link in spanish)

And to top it up, he played America Centenario! Another example of FIFA Player Status Committee not doing their job properly when it comes to change of association matters. (And the same goes to the FA of Argentine, Chile and, deja vú, Panama)

 

And to add insult to the injury...

Another "Bolivian" playetr that participated in Copa America Centenario and in the current qualifiers, Damian Lizio, is in a situation similar to that of "Chaco" Gimenez. Just look at his entry in Soccerway.com, look under National Team statistics.

He played for Argentina U20 in the South America Youth Tournament in 2009, and in that time he has no connection whatsoever to Bolivia, just as "Chaco". And this before the other missing requirement, because as Cabrera, he has not played at least 5 years continuously in the new association. Venezuela in these qualifiers is the injured party and should also follow suit as Chile and Peru did.

This is for me the equivalent of doping. But FIFA would not go the way of WADA and COI of stripping medals retroactively. (Unless it suits a particular situation, e.g. Syria disqualification of WC 2014 because of the George Mourad affair).

Again, FIFA Player Status Commission not doing the job it is supposed to do.

 

It is going to be interesting to see how FIFA approaches this Bolivian situation.
Will they award 3 points to each of their opponents? Or just give them a fine, or just subtract points away from them and not add them to the other teams statistics.
Or they may just turn a blind eye to it and sweep it under the rug (which I doubt but you never know.)

I remember a Colombian defender by the name of Yimmy Bermudez who ( I think) played some sort of qualifier with Equatorial Guinea even though he had no connection to them and played with Colombia in the U20 tournament similar to this Bolivian guy.
I don't think FIFA did anything to punish them. (But I could be wrong.)

 

Equatorial Guinea is the worst offender when it comes to ineligible players in official matches, there is even an entry in wikipedia with a brief recopilation of this affair, including the case of Jimmy Bermudez. He played in a match against Cabo Verde in the qualifiers for WC 2014 which was latter declared a forfeit by FIFA. But he was not the player declared ineligible, it was Emilio Nsue López (link).
After that he played in another 2 qualifiers of WC 2014 without any complaint againt him.
It seems that FIFA and the Confederations doesn´t bother about this issue.

 

Strange that the CONMEBOL teams are only just aware of the five year rule. Looking back, it seems that any nationalized player in Bolivia has been called up after three years residency. You would think that all these players were reviewed by FIFA.

 

FIFA doesn't review simple naturalization cases until someone protests. If no one complains, no one looks at the issue.

 

Which makes me wonder if CONMEBOL Federations are making sure their own house is not made of glass before casting official stones at other houses.

 

Well it looks like FIFA took action on the Bolivia situation:
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y...d-for-fielding-ineligible-player-2847422.html

 

In any case it's strange that this only noticed now. FIFA's ruling is not surprising though.

 

Looks like his previous matches in Copa were all loses. Save the protest for when you need the points.

 

No I refer to the multiple nationalized Bolivian players that have been playing after their third year. As far as I can track back all of these players would have been ineligible. In particular, Pablo Escobar was nationalized in 2008. Looking back though he only played in one protestable game, the 1-0 victory over Brazil in the 2010 qualifier.

Just amazing that Bolivia have done this for so long without figuring this out or getting caught.

 

And it could be worse for Bolivia.

Now that FIFA decided that you can file a protest regarding ineligible player after the supposed limit of 24 hour following the match and award the forfeit, Venezuela could also file a protest because Bolivia fielded another ineligible player in the match they lost 4-2. Damian Lizio, an argentinian without any bolivian heritage, not only did not fulfill the criteria of 5 years playing in Bolivia, he also played for Argentina U20 in the 2009 South America Youth Tournament that served as qualifiers for the 2009 FIFA U20 WC.

Maybe the people at the Panama FA would wonder if they had made a more energic protest in 2013, they could had made it to Brasil 2014.

 

Maybe they should demand FIFA, at the International Court of Justice, for not allowing them to keep on cheating.......

 

5 points to say that their only point is that the protest was late.

 

Frankly this is inexcusable. Just ridiculous. If they did it unawares it's the height of incompetence. If they knew then it's the height of corruption.

The most damning thing is that AFAICT, all nationalized players have done this. It's been 8 years since this regulation was approved!

 

This

As long as FIFA does not take charge of the procedure of verifying eligibility of players, specially those that are changing allegiance, with mandatory checks, other NT would try to take advantage of it by sneaking in players without providing information of their background (e.g. Qatar and Emerson in 2008 vs. Irak), making quite complicated to adversaries to be able to file a complaint on time (24 hour window after the match to do it) and get away with it (no complain on time, no penalty) Remember the "Chaco" Gimenez affair

Maybe if FBF takes it all the way to the TAS, it could force FIFA to do just that, in a similar fashion that it made mandatory to use a centralized Transfer system (TSM) among league teams.

 

The team most hurt by the forfeits might not be Bolivia because they wouldn't have qualified anyway. As a result of Chile being given a forfeit win, Argentina fell to sixth. Imagine if Argentina finishes sixth, 1 point behind fifth place Chile, and Bolivia's punishment makes there be a World Cup without Messi.

 

Given their remaining games I could see Argentina losing out with or without that.

 

In 2014 we saw a great World Cup ... despite a disappointing Messi ... and it was a World Cup without Bale, Lewandowski, Alaba, Cech, Hamsik, Oblak, Eriksen, Yarmolenko, Aubameyang, Arda Turan, Ibrahimovic et al. ... Zlatan and Cristiano Ronaldo were both great in play-offs but 1 of them had to lose ... and then the players who missed out due to injuries like Reus, Falcao, Ribery, Benteke, Strootman, Thiago Alcantara, Gundogan, Suarez (wasn't fully fit) and so on, and so on.

Clearly it isn't unusual that household names have to stay at home ... mainly in UEFA (while e.g. a Mexico can't fail to qualify regardless of how horrible their Qs results were) ... if the argies qualify instead of Chile, Vidal and Alexis Sanchez will be missed ... still if the argies end up as one of the bottom half teams, they can only blame themselves ... what do you want? ... FIFA to help the argies cheat? ... eventhough you would think that FIFA don't need lessons in corruption, the argies can still teach them a thing or two ... if we're lucky, we'll get to see this again: Messi crying uncontrollably and ragequitting.

 

Yeah, screw them...