Recent discussions of Rossi have me wondering about the conditions under which a player can change national teams (if he can)? Specifically wondering if Shalrie Joseph could ever play for USA.
If a player has ever been capped by a country's national team he can't change. Youth players can change once I believe.
I'd check out the thread "Arena slams door on Rossi Pt 2." https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=293652&page=5 A recent post lists all the FIFA rules, and changes from Jan. 2004. It's very thorough, as is the discussion on that thread.
If a player has ever been capped by a country's national team in a sanctioned event (Gold Cup, WCQ, Confed Cup, etc), he can't change. If he's capped in a friendly, he can change (see Cunningham, Jeff). If a youth player is capped in a sanctioned event, he has the right to change his allegiance until his 21st birthday. The catch is that he can only change to a country for which he was already eligible at the time of his cap. So, for example, Adu can still play for Ghana. But if he moves to London tomorrow and becomes a star Chelsea on his 18th birthday and an English citizen on his 19th, he still can't play for anyone but the US or Ghana. And on his 21st, if he's never been capped by the senior squad of the US or Ghana, he's US for life. Rossi, however, can gain his English citizenship tomorrow and then have 3 options to choose from because he's never been capped in any FIFA tournament on any level.
Here's the relevant language form the FIFA statute with a couple of my comments in bold on the most frequently misunderstood parts: http://www.fifa.com/documents/static/regulations/Statutes_09_2005_EN.pdf p.60 Matrim55 does a good job of explaining how the rules work, but is incorrect on one minor point. Rossi has played for Italy in qualifying for one of the youth championships. Thus, the only association he could change to is the USA, regardless of whether he acquires some other citizenship before his 21st birthday.
If jeff Cunningham ever played for the full Jamacian national team then he wouldnt be able to play for the U.S. If he played for a jamacian youth national team in a friendly then, which I think is what he did then he is elligable to play for another nation.
Yes he would, as long as it was a friendly and not in an officialy sanctioned FIFA event (World Cup Qualifier, World Cup, Gold Cup, etc)
Soundbite: "I haven't even spent two seconds thinking about it." Bruce Arena's response when asked about the possibility of calling up Manchester United's Italian-American youngster Giuseppe Rossi, should Rossi have a change of heart and express interest in playing for the U.S. prior to the World Cup.