FIFA removes age limit for switching national teams

I assume this is effective immediately, or is there some other implementation time-line?

Could Arturo Alvarez play for ES this weekend or next week (if it was logistically possible and they wanted to play him)?

I'm sure Alvarez would have preferred FIFA made this change 6 months ago (or before that).

 

I don't think he would be eligible to play for El Salvador just yet. Remember that all national teams must submit a 25 man roster a week prior to each match.

Hopefully El Salvador will be able to withstand the pressure and get points to still be alive in the WCQ, if not I believe it would be too late for Arturo Alvarez's call up to the national team.

 

You can make changes to the rosterasap.. we added Clark right before the CRC game. I believe fifa has to review any proposed switch and that could take a week or two.

 

He would have to apply (or re-apply, as the case may be) for a change of associations. I'm not sure how long it usually takes for that clearance to go through.

 

Clark was likely on some provisional 40 or 60 or 100 player list that the US must have submitted to Concacaf or Fifa or whomever. so the idea of calling him in to replace Hejduk or Edu (whomever it was that was injured and pulled off the 23 or 18 man "official" gameday roster) isn't a real issue, one would assume.

currently, I'd imagine that Alvarez likely isn't on any provisional lists for ES since (in Jan or Feb or whenever) he was ruled ineligible for ES by Fifa.

I do think it is highly unlikely we'll see Alvarez in an ES kit in June (but I don't know, maybe ES can fast-track the paper work with FIFA since they seemed to have asked about him right before the Hex started -- so Concacaf/Fifa should know about their interest in using the player). but I do think there is a fairly good chance we could see Alvarez playing for ES by August/Sept.

 

I really think that if Castillo doesn't play for Mexico this weekend, there is a very good chance he plays for us in the near future. Call it a hunch. BB and everyone at USSF knows we are desperate at LB, I am sure that it has been discussed already.

 

So he is with Mexico? on that ESPN link I didn't think I saw his name.

 

I heard he got called in by Mexico to replace some injured guy but I am not too sure about that.

I would love to know if someone can verify that..

 

That was last round. He was called in to replace Dos Santos, but claimed to have lost his passport, making him unable to travel with the team. I don't beleive that he has been called in for the coming matches.

 

haha, sounds like he wants to be american after all.

 

That was a made up story to feed to the media.

Its known that he has legal problems in Mexico that he has to deal with.

Not paying child support and not paying for a Hummer he purchased.

He had to deal with those problems and couldn't leave the country.

 

That's a capital H. Not paying for the lower case kind is preferable.

The rumor was that his ex-wife hid his passport to mess with him.

 

This rule will hurt every federation with a large amount of immigrants. Germany and Switzerland have already criticised the decision. I guess, criticism by contries like France, England, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium etc will only be a matter of time too.

 

Well, being that I'm 100% American, I couldn't be happier to level the playing field.

 

I wouldn't think so. To the extent that it will hurt the "power" teams, it will be more because of lifting up their competition (by providing more access to cast-offs) than it will by losing players they want to keep.

For instance, losing Alvarez wouldn't hurt us so much because he would no longer be available for us, given that there's no indication he's likely to figure in any coach's plans. Rather, it would hurt us because it would strengthen the competition in our region (though, coming as it does after a match at El Salvador, it might help us by making other teams' qualification more difficult).

 

I think that the main effect will be a general leveling of the playing field. A guy like Alvarez might be a third-tier guy for the U.S., but he could still be better than El Salvador's #1 guy. This rule would not apply exactly to a guy like Sebastien Bassong, but it's the same concept. He's a fringe player for France but an upgrade for Cameroon.

 

does anyone know if the grandparent rule still applies?
i remember reading if a player had one grandparent from that country they were still eligible
example would be nery castillo being eligible for italy (pre mexico)

 

What about Jermaine Jones (Schalke) playing for the US? He qualifies now, right? What a coup that would be...

 

FIFA imposed the limit of 21 years old about four years ago, correct?

So now doesn't this switch it back to exactly the way it was before?

 

i think you couldn't switch at all before that if you played for any youth team.

 

Well, at least now we can cap Augustin Viana.... At least he would be a better LB than Beasley is.

 

Uh oh....Boca and Gooch could have to defend Bobby Zamora in Trinidad this fall? The YA forum folks wll go crazy.

 

lol gold

I hope we can get E Castillo at least in for a look, i mean look at his damn competition. Im surprised there hasnt been any BS walk-ons for left back yet, theyd have a pretty good chance. Castillo i think would walk into the spot (assuming we keep shafting Spector, we're pretty good at that).

and that Jermaine Jones guy, he's apparently pretty good isnt he? oh would be a dream....

 

He's been capped by the German National team.

 

My question is what country was this rule changed for? Someone must benefit from this (not us) and I'd like to know who it is