English players Dual Nationality thread

I don't actually disagree about the granny rule, but it'd make bugger-all difference here. Ejaria, Akpom, and Lookman all have Nigerian parents.

 

Rover really just needs to chill on this topic. It's a bit disturbing how much it gets to him. Genuinely cares about it more than the actual England games. He's just repeating himself over and over and using some pretty iffy language and is seemingly gaining no new understanding about the possibility of someone feeling affinity towards two countries.

 

Completely agree, especially about the language. "Scavengers" now, ffs. I get the point that's being made but there's a poisonous hostility to it. Settle down, mate.

 

Ok I'm calm

 

Not doubting Barry or the article to a degree but find it strange that I can’t find any other articles stating that Lookman has decided to play for Nigeria, not even the usual Nigeria sites are reporting it which I find surprising unless I’m not looking in the right places? I would have thought they would be all over this.

 

I mean granny or parent rule

 

Get rid of the parent rule?

 

I think you have to look at it case by case. Someone born in Africa say, with African parents but brought up here its fair they can choose either country. Also players like Zaha who are overlooked for an entirely unreasonable length of time you can hardly blame for jumping ship. I do object though to Nigeria being able to employ a man who dedicates his entire life in this country to trying to manipulate young players that have never lived in Nigeria to defect away from the country he is apparently allowed to reside in , on whatever basis. The guy must spend all his week pouncing on the doorsteps of English footballers families trying to work on undermining their son's commitment to representing us. I
t ends up not feeling like its even a matter of free will in the end but outside pressure exerted on them by means of manipulating their parents in to putting pressure on them to jump ship.

 

Exactly . It's wrong. English born players should only be able to choose England. Raheem_Sterling was brought up in England from an early age so those examples are different

 

Yes.

 

So for example, my son born in Sweden to a English father and Swedish mother has to play for Sweden even though he supports England and not Sweden?

Sorry, can’t agree to that, that’s totally unfair and for arguments sake my son becomes a top football talent, you’re taking away his dream and right to play for England who he adores.

 

For arguments sake. Let's just say that your son attends a Swedish football academy, he grows up through the Swedish football system, learns all his football knowledge the Swedish way. They put all their time and resources into teaching and nurturing him only for him to turn round and say he wants to represent a country he's never lived in or had any football experience of. A bit of a kick in the teeth to the Swedish FA if you ask me.

I understand where you're coming from saying g that your son might see himself as English but I'm afraid this is the same situation to the English born Irish players that were always ranting about.

It really gets to me when we nurture English players only for Ireland to come and steal them away from us.

 

People like John Aldridge saying he never felt English with his thick scouse accent. A few other English born Ireland players said the same. Sad they cant feel English AND irish

 

John alridge was lying. He's the same as mcateer. They're just lying to Make the public and themselves think they're more Irish then they actually are. Everyone knows mcateer would have chosen England if we seriously wanted him. And Aldridge for that matter.

 

Absolutely crackers you boys.

 

So Eric Dier should be playing for Portugal then?

I don’t know why people get so het up about it personally. I think it’s great that Aubemeyang has chosen to play for a nation that has never qualified for the World Cup instead of the nation of his birth which is one of the best sides in the world.

 

No dier was born in England and only moved there when he was like 6 or so. I'm on about people born in a country and spent their entire lives there.

 

Yeah, understand all that and totally get the frustrations of being an England fan when we have so many English born players switching to other Nations and yeah it’s harsh on the system that has put time and effort to raise them but we just live in a completely different environment these days compared to days gone by. I just find it incredibly harsh that my lad would be forced to pledge his International allegiance to a Country he doesn’t support in regard to football or he could choose to ultimately not play International football if he so desired, extreme I know but he could feel that way, I know plenty of Swedish born English lads who don’t feel they are Swedish so under these circumstances it could happen.

 

Fair enough if he feels English but I doubt in their heart Aldridge or babb or mcateer felt truly Irish

 

Fair enough. Suppose we should be thankful that lads born abroad wanna represent this beautiful country.

 

The question is would Aubameyang have done that if he was good enough for France back in 2009 though?

 

Probably, his dad was captain of Gabon NT so he wanted to follow him. He’s also eligible for Spain.

 

The team is England though, not England FA. The players are supposed to be representing their country, not their countries youth development system.

 

Equally, if you were hung up on these things, you'd have to question the FA and their approach to dual nationals. We're giving minutes to guys like Oko-Flex who no one seems to know if he'll ever even be eligible or Musiala and Ohio who arguably have stronger links to the countries of their birth. Surely Scotland are aggrieved that we have seemingly bagged Dembele too? You would have thought his links to Scotland or the Ivory Coast are stronger than England.

The point is that it's a game all nations are playing, Germany are another a major football nation that go after England youth team players. If anything its more understandable that the likes of Nigeria, which has much poorer infrastructure follow this route.

At the end of the day England are going to retain the vast majority of the top talent that comes through our system that are born here, or that has lived here most of their lives. If we were losing the likes of Abraham, Hudson Odoi etc then perhaps we should start getting worried. As far as I can see we haven't lost any higher level players that we weren't guilty of sleeping on.

 

I do wonder if some people have any friends who are immigrants, or sons or Grandsons of immigrants? Some of this stuff is baffling how you can't see that people have strong affiliations to 2 countries, often when they've never been there.

Especially relevant to those who 'look' like they are from other countries, my mate who has both parents born in England, but to Indian parents, and has born and grown up in England would still see himself as Indian as he is English - probably because he has had to suffer the racism still prevalent in society.

And also, these guys are professionals, they make business decisions too - it's why Owen Hargreaves played for England.

There is so much of 'you need to be born here' to then say 'well Sterling is different' and so much mental gymnastics required for viewpoints.

Count yourself lucky that we are at the top of the foodchain, realistically anyone eligible and good enough for England is going to play for us.