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

Ok fine, point taken. However, since it is well understood can you clarify if you agree with BostonRed that Cajuste and Morales are ineligible?

 

I haven't got anywhere near enough actual knowledge about the facts of any of the players to hazard a guess. Also, I don't make my living as a sports lawyer...

 

FIFA could've given an exemption.

 

Elkeson has just been called up.

 

FIFA often give exemptions to the five years after 18 rule. We have received a few for a few different players. They tend to be lenient when the immigration and subsequent citizenship happened for non footballing reasons. Ours have ranged from parents immigrating when the child was young and grew up to be a good local footballer to a couple who came in their teens as refugees and subsequently obtained Australian citizenships. The five year rule after 18 would mean they had to stay in Australia until 23 years of age and be ineligible for youth teams. With the exemption they can play youth football and sign a contract with a higher paying overseas club before they turn 23 and still play for the Australian national team. A person can apply for Australian citizenship after 4 years permanent residency (among other requirements)

 

Australia are apparently the leading country for exemption requests.

 

I can think of at least 4 who have played youth and/or national team football. There may be even more.

 

Pretty much every under-23 player born outside Australia would require an exemption.

 

Unless they were eligible for citizenship at birth due to ancestry. The five years only applies to naturalised players who weren't eligible by birth.

 

That is an interesting case study that is for sure.

Not sure how I feel about it. As long as they are not breaking any current FIFA rules I say why hate the player.? Hate the game. And if the kids want to giver up on the Selecao dreams then that is their right to (even at a young age.)

That being said, I can see why people would hate this mercenary poaching style of recruiting and it gives unfair advantages to countries that can just buy their way to the top through other Federations' youth.

. .

 

My own nation has a long history of selecting naturalised players in the national team. I've never seen anything particularly wrong with it. Some nations push the envelope a bit in allowing special exemptions which FIFA's five year rule was meant to address. It has a flaw in it that it prevents a person who's family arrived in a country to settle when they were children from representing the country they were brought up in until they are 28, but to my knowledge FIFA has always allowed an exemption in these cases when its applied for. We have a few of those at the moment who have represented Australia in recent times. We also seem to have started searching overseas for people who may be eligible for Australian citizenship with two recent representatives who made their first visits to Australia to play for the national team.

 

I assume you mean 23 instead of 28 (5 years continuous residence after turning 18).

 

Yes sorry I got confused. Added the 5 on to the minimum eligibility age.

 

Interesting part is what happens if they later accept a call-up from Brazil? But yea, FIFA might need to have a think about this...

 

Seems to be definitely plausible. I pulled up the young players playing in UAE Pro League who are U21 from South America and never appeared for the National Teams from Transfermarkt and formatting from Wikipedia. While I understand that many talented young Brazilians and Argentines never get an opportunity to play for their countries, I think it would be worthwhile to have this list here for future reference here in case we need to get back to this case.

Eduardo Voltan da Silva (born 29 November 2000) is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Al Wahda.

Gláuber Siqueira dos Santos Lima (born 22 May 2000), commonly known as Gláuber, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Al-Nasr.

Gabriel Valentini da Silva (born 26 September 2000), commonly known as Gabriel Valentini, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Al-Nasr, on loan from Juventude.

Matheus Avelino Da Silva (born 29 December 2000) is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Al-Wasl.

Natan Felipe Bedriali (born 29 January 2000) is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Al-Wasl.

Marcus Vinicius Barbosa Meloni (born 25 June 2000) is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Sharjah.

Rafael dos Santos Resende (born 5 March 2000), commonly known as Resende, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Sharjah.

Renner de Souza Silva (born 24 February 2000), commonly known as Renner, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Al Jazira.

Saile Samuel Da Silva Souza (born 14 September 2000), commonly known as Saile Souza is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Baniyas.

João Victor Lucas Wesner (born 23 March 2000) is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Baniyas.

Lucca Farias Di Giuseppe (born 10 March 2000), commonly known as Lucca Farias, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Khor Fakkan.

Kainandro da Silva Pereira Santos (born 4 June 2000), commonly known as Kainandro, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Ittihad Kalba, on loan from Vasco da Gama.

Antonio Valmor Assis Da Silva Junior (born 6 March 2000), commonly known as Juninho, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Khor Fakkan.

Willian Gabriel Galvão Forte (born 10 May 2000), commonly known as Willian Forte, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Ittihad Kalba.

Joaquín Pérez Ibáñez (born 1 February 2000) is an Argentine footballer who currently plays as a forward for Al-Wasl.

 

England and Nigeria are going to be battling for the next decade over British born players of Nigerian descent.

The super eagles is currently made up of a few British born players like

Alex Iwobi (Everton)
Ola Aina (Torino)
Joe Aribo (Rangers)
Semi Ajayi (Westbromich)
Josh Maja (Bordeaux)

None of these players are good enough for England, although England really tried to persuade Iwobi from joining Nigeria. Ola Aina I would say may have had a fringe career with 3 Lions.

However many new emerging talents are said to be considering the switch.

Recently both Ademola Lookman (RB Leipzig) and Ovie Ejaria (Reading/Liverpool) have completed the switch over to Nigeria. Both members of the U20 England world cup winning squad.

It has also been reported that both Eberechi Eze (QPR) One of the top players in the Championship heavily linked to many Premier league clubs and Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) are being heavily courted for a switch and considering their options.

Man City owned Tosin Adarabioyo also said to be heavily considering an international switch.

Interesting times, Nigeria is quietly putting together a strong team for 2022. The Nigeria vs England tussle will go on for a decade at least.

 

Nice. Exciting team there.

 

The coach is still Gernot Rohr (thd guy that coached them this past WC. I can't answef the second part of youd question, though. I hope they are. Nigeria is a fun team to watch and can be even more fun.

 

yes its Gernot Rohr, and the Fed has been working on this strategy for a while and I have shared the successes, but as I stated those are mostly players who would not have made it with England, they are now hoping to poach some more high profile players.

England is where most dual Nigerian players are, but there are also others in Germany, Belgium, Holland.

We have recently also convinced Cyriel Dessers (Belgium/Nigeria) who was top scorer in the Dutch league last year, as well as Kingsley Ezibuhue (Holland/Nigeria) FC Koln to play for us, and they would have made their debuts in the last March 2020 window which was cancelled.

Rumors are that we are also trying to get some German/Nigerian defenders like Felix Udokhai and Felix Torunariga.

I thought the US was doing pretty good with dual nationals, especially out of Germany.

Are you saying Mexico is winning the battle against the US in capping dual nationals ?