For everyone who is interested in this, the Surinamese government has decided to introduce sports passports. That means that from now on all Dutch football players with Surinamese roots can be selected for the national team. The Surinamese Football Association has struggled for years to convince the Surinamese government of the importance of involving overseas players. The mission was successful!
Great news for Concacaf but bad news for a country like Canada. Qualifying got just that much tougher. The amount of great Dutch soccer players over the years with Surinamese roots is ridiculous (Davids, Gullit, Riijkaard, Seedorf, Kluivert, Hasselbaink, De Jong, Wijnaldum, van Dijk and the list goes on). Easily the best nation in CONCACAF when it comes to dual nationals and it isn't even close.
They wouldn't get probably any of those players you mentioned, but they will be able to get the ones that are one step off the Dutch national team. They're going to be playing the bigger sides a lot more now with the next A League, Gold Cup and WCQ. With the expanded tournament, I think it's a very realistic goal for them to qualify for the World Cup in 2026 or 2030.
After qualifying for the Gold Cup, seven more Dutch/Suriname dual nationals have decided to play for Surinam yesterday. De volgende profs die Suriname komen versterken zijn: Kelvin Leerdam (Seattle Sounders), Ryan Donk (Galatasaray), Tjaronn Chery (Maccabi Haifa), Florian Jozefzoon (Derby County), Diego Biseswar (PAOK Saloniki), Mitchell Donald (Evkur Yeni Malatyaspor) en Miquel Nelom (Willem II). pic.twitter.com/gPCGnhrMFo— Natio Suriname (@NatioSuriname) November 22, 2019
That's right. Most of these players can no longer play for Suriname (except Nigel Hasselbaink, who played the last 2 games against Dominica and Nicaragua when this scheme was introduced).
Yes I know,Jimmy Floyd is Nigels uncle, but in this case I was referring to the law that made it impossible in the past to allow players of Surinamese origin to play for their country. Nigel was the first to use the new legislation, so that's what I meant to say.
My Ghanaian breddah,big up!, We hope to get better performance with stronger players. I have always seen Ghana as a great example of how to improve a sport policy.We can learn al lot from you.
Yes Suriname can and they are off to a start. I mean if they can qualify for Gold Cup 2021, then Suriname can actually be a dark horse in that tournament.
I also believe that Suriname can do it.I said it a long time ago, Suriname has produced a lot of good players in the Netherlands and other European countries, but for some reason they were never allowed to play for their own country.
Exactly and if more Surinamese players start playing for Suriname they can become a superpower in CONCACAF in a few years at least