No. Because the rules say something about subsequently (or some synonym thereof) getting a 2nd nationality. He's NOT cap-tied by the U-17 tournament, I don't think. Reminds me of a very old Steve Martin bit. "I didn't know armed robbery was a crime." "You didn't know armed robbery was a crime?!?!?!" "Well excuuuuuse meeeeeeeee!!!" It was funny in the 70s. Confusing, yes. Arbitrary, I would say no. Like I said, the situation is such that a player has to make a choice, and then affirm it. As I read the rule in it entirety. The language of the rule doesn't seem to make a distinction for one order of events over the other. It's not clear to me. People seem to be forgetting that before Freddy signed with MLS his people were talking about him signing in Europe, and then after he signed with MLS, his agent (Motzkin?) was quoted as admitting there was no way around FIFA's rule about the international transfer of children. For some reason, Freddy's people thought, apparently, that being publicly ambiguous helped their negotiating position or marketing appeal. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that his agent is bullshitting to the media in order to do the same again.
The language of the rule says one of the conditions is that he had to have both eligibilities at the time of his appearance for one Association in a sanctioned event. See Craig P.s post which I've quoted below. Re-read the second condition. Yeah - but this isn't a crime, it's about letting rash youth have a change of heart and in my opinion having a friendly cap-tie you is counter intuitive and needs to be laid out more clearly. Your affirm theory doesn't seem all that compelling to me. As Craig P wonders below, I can't help but wonder if the language is meant to imply "A Team appearance in an official competition". Right - which in my opinion is another reason why the rule is a little weird. Except there was something to be gained monetarily by being dense about the transfer of children thing. I'm not sure what the motivation here would be.
Thomas - actually it isn't false and your days on this website may be numbered once again. You really are just trolling whether you care to admit it or not. Can find one person on this site who believes you argue in good faith? It's true that you are often insulted and rarely respond in kind, but that doesn't mean you aren't trolling. Your comment below is a case in point.
How can I poll everyone on the website? Once in awhile I look at the rep section because some people use that to send PMs. You will see that most of the comments are favorable so I guess there is some agreement. On the other hand there are people who really believe Adu's press releases, think MLS is doing great and other points of endless debate and obviously they take issue with my comments. Some are very insulting, most are not. Concerning FIFA's "rules", if Kenn, who pays more attention to world soccer than 99.9 per cent of the people on the planet, is calling USSF to get a ruling on the Adu/cap issue, doesn't that tell you something about FIFA and its "rules"? For heaven's sake, FIFA threw out its ranking system a few weeks before the World Cup draw and came up with a new one that came to the same result except to cost the US its seed. So much for FIFA's "rules". It wouldn't be a thread where I post without some reference to an anecdote or a book. The Tomlinson book has a chapter in it about FIFA statutes, their interpretation and so on. Tomlinson is hardly the critic of FIFA that Yallop or Jennings are but he has some choice words about "interpretation" of the statutes. Even the moderates think FIFA makes up the rules as it goes along. No one is so blind as he who will not see. There are many hard core fans that want MLS to succeed, see Adu as the Messiah, and have no tolerance at all for people like me who are very sceptical. Sorry, but I have seen three pro soccer teams in Chicago go under (Spurs, Mustangs and Sting) in my lifetime and I sure don't want to see a 4th. But I think we are headed that way and there is not much time left to save it.
I'll call your bluff. Either prove the above, or disappear forever. And disprove all the threads leading up to the World Cup which predicted the U.S. would not be seeded.
I think this thread needs to be renamed. "The episode were EVERYBODY'S head explodes." is much more appropriate.
Your positive reps are for your posts on US Fans and Travel. Thomas - I'm not a blind MLS worshipper and I can see that you don't debate in good faith. But, like I said, this is an example of why I think you are clearly trolling: 1. In the above posts you acknowledge that you are posting in forums that have many MLS fans and many Adu fans. 2. You make exaggerated comments unsupported by evidence such as "Freddy Adu's heart is with Ghana and not the U.S.", "Freddy is the biggest flop since the Edsel". Those are comments clearly intended to wind posters up. 3. When challenged about those comments - for example Freddy has said he has strong feelings about both countries and yet he continues to play for this country - you simply repeat your exaggerated point of view without acknowledging much more solid counterevidence. It's fine to think Freddy is over-rated - lots of people on this website do. It's the manner in which you conduct yourself that is the problem. If you want to continue posting here, you need to hit the agree to disagree macro a lot quicker because as I've said before, this website isn't set up to make any one person's opinion more important than others - so when it repeatedly becomes a topic of heated discussion, it starts to become a problem.
Texgator, your humor is much appreciated! Matt, I was not able to read US Men News & Analysis in a lot of time leading up to the draw, so it is a little unfair for you to demand that I comment on them. I imagine there were people saying the US deserved to get a seed and those who said we did not deserve it. It more or less came down to the US or Mexico and those who pointed out that the US had had a very good record against Mexico since 1998 certainly had a strong argument. In the end, FIFA did NOT use its ranking system for picking seds, but used a new variant of it. I believe press reports stated that Dr. Bob was asked if it was fair and he chose his words carefully when he answered. I do not have time to respond to every post, every argument but I think it is impossible for anyone to "prove" what goes on in Switzerland when FIFA meets. Yallop said that FIFA deliberations and votes were even more secret than the College of Cardinals that elects the Pope! But I think a lot of the predictions I made in 2001-2005 came true. Some didn't of course but no one bats a thousand do they?
Beau, I think Kenn is asking you to "officially" ask the USSF for a clarification on Adu's status in your capacity as a USA Today staffer. Dave, My interpretation is that the language is poorly written and requires clarification from FIFA.
FIFA has never used its ranking system alone for seeding. Matt is not asking you to comment on threads in US MNT N&A. He is asking you to provide evidence that shows that all of the seeding threads that actually used the seeding formula were somehow wrong: there were threads updating the actual seeding formula every month and at no point did it look like the US would be seeded. As to merit, the US was not competing with Mexico alone for a seed, it was competing with every other natioanl team in the World Cup. The US x Mexico head-to-head record is not an indicator of either team's chance of being seeded. Oh, and your post below, in repsonse to dark knight, does exactly as the AndyMead description of your posts predicts it would do. You did not address your German ref conspiracy theory nonsense which is what dark knight referred to in his post when he said:
I wonder if your inability to read those threads (and you easily could have, just don't be signed in to BS) has to do with you constantly trolling and being completely full of crap. Just a thought. NO SERIOUS POSTER leading up to the WC thought the U.S. would be seeded once the 32 teams were known. FIFA did apparently change the formula slightly from 2002, but the U.S. wouldn't have been seeded under that formula either. And considering our 1998 WC performance, we really couldn't expect to be. Of course U.S. Soccer lobbied for one, but that was based purely on emotion, not mathematics. But I'm sure Julie Foudy and Brandi Chastain had something to do with it.
What's unclear about it? It lays out the exact situations in which a player can request a one-time change of associations, and which associations he can change to. I'm willing to accept that it's in error (in the sense that FIFA wanted the "A" international bit to refer specifically to official competitions and not any "A" level appearance), but not that it's unclear. What FIFA should do, though, is if they want it to mean official competitions, amend it so it says official competitions.
Vis-a-vis seeding, there were a number of people who argued hopefully (and in vain) that our head-to-head record against Mexico, as well as winning CONCACAF qualifying, ought to overrule Mexico's standing in the seeding formulas. However, everyone who had been following the process knew that we were on the outside looking in and would need a major modification to the formula for that to change.
You know what "everyone in the industry" thinks about MLS' TV contract. I thought you had extra-special thought detectors. Like the ones that allow you to sniff out fixed soccer matches. Not true. I've never claimed to pay more attention to world soccer than anyone. I pay a lot of attention to MLS, the USL, the MISL and the US Nats and a little bit of attention to the EPL. Most anything else I see is in highlights. And FIFA's rules are written oddly, like the NCAA's. There are college football coaches, who do this for a living, who don't understand the NCAA's rules. Which is why schools have a Compliance Officer to make sense of it all. I don't know what point you're trying to make, though, other than "FIFA has some arcane rules," to which we're willing to stipulate, your honor. Not true.
Yes, I am. Because I don't know Stephen Goff. It would make a decent entry in your blog, at least, leading up to the friendly this weekend.
There are people who work at the NCAA who don't understand the NCAA's rules. I have known of athletes who have just given up the fight because the investigation would take so long that their season would almost be over by the time they found out of they could play.
I go away for two days and it changes from an Ollivericious Foudy Fest to an Adurific Flannagithon! The more things change...