Blatter on naturalized Brazilians

Well i"m glad that Blatter has mentionned this as it was about time for important people within FIFA to notice this!I truly hope that FIFA will do something about this as it makes international football less interesting and makes it look like a total joke.Let's not forget that Brazilians aren't the only ones doing this!Argentines and Nigerians have done so aswell(much less tough).Rules should be much more severe when it comes to represent a national team that you have no link with other than club football,especially if the player moved exclusively to sign a professional contract.

 

Totally agree with Blatter, we need strict rules, otherwise it's likely that there won't be any difference between a national team and a big club team in the near future. Countries like Qatar, Azerbaijan etc. need to stop naturalizing foreign players.

 

Interesting how only brasilian players were mentioned. But no word about how many european national teams are made up almost in half with this or that way imported players. Like Germany (Klose, Podolski, Kuranyi, Asamoah, Castro...), Sweden (Ibrahimovic, Majstorovic, Lucic, Shaaban, Concha, Bakircioglu, Prica, Djuric...), or even his Switzerland (Behrami, Dzemaili, Smiljanic, Yakin, Inler, Nkufo...). Ok, some of them were born in those countries, but if we're about to have pure "national" teams those players shouldn't be included neither. And how about mercenary selectors? (managers, coaches, call them whatever you want). Aren't they also the ones who represent the nation too? But you even don't need a citizenship to manage a n.t.
I am against "buying" already developed players just for the national team purpose, but if a player develops a pro status in a country and legaly gets it's citizenship he should be able by all rights to represent it.

 

Why stop there? How about only native Americans can play for the USA. Peru can only select players with Incan ancestry. Only Maoris in the New Zealand side.

The objection is not against players with ancestry from their chosen country despite not being born there or against players who may have emigrated as children, but against fully fledged professional footballers moving to another country and then claiming citizenship in order to play international football for a country they have no connection with other than working there.

 

Yes like some have said brazilians aren't the only ones, though they are the most numerous, here're some argentines i can remember were born in Argentina but play for other national teams:

-Elizaga(Ecuador).
-Klimowicz(Ecuador).
-Pablo Mastroeni(United States).
-G. Franco(Mexico).
-Mariano Pernia(Spain).
-Mauro Camoranesi(Italy).
-Jonathan Santana(Paraguay).
-Roberto Colautti(Israel).

There's some kid that started to play for Italy U17 last year can't remember his name.

Also i think there are 2 uruguayans playing for Qatar currently.

 

They only way they can change the rules would be to allow only citizens at birth (i.e. not naturalized). I don't see any way they could prevent someone like Giovanni Dos Santos from playing for Mexico.

 

Giovanni Dos Santos was born in Mexico aswell as having a mexican mother.I don't see anything wrong with his case.

 

I think they could make a rule that any player who was not born in a country or had not moved to a country while still underage (under 18) could not play for that country. That keeps people like Dos Santos of Croatia in play but eliminates the problem of established professional players being recruited by other countries.

 

Rules should apply to a player who leaves his country to sign a contract in another country.Why because he left is home country for footballing reasons.

 

A question is, what is enough to be eglible to a nt? From the Germans Purger mentioned, Klose & Podolski have German ancestry, but were born in Poland, while Castro has Spanish ancestry, but was born in Germany. If neither is enough to play for a national team, they all cannot play for any national team.

I think a player should be eglible to play for any nation he had citizenship as a youth (before his 18th birthday). That way we will still have a lot of players that can chose, but I do think someone who grew up in one country, but has parents from/was born in a different country should be allowed to chose whether he feels more connected to the country he grew up in or where his roots are. Even if his decision will often be more connected to which nt offered him a position first

 

This should definitely be dealt with ASAP. But I'm really not sure how can they do that without breaking any civil rights.

 

It is also sad that people mentioned barring players such as Mastroeni, Kuranyi, Asamoah, Castro, Ibrahimovic, etc to play for their respective national team. We distinguish foreign players with immigrants. Historically speaking, immigrants always use sports for upward mobility. Those countries, namely the US, Sweden, Germany, France etc actually did well to incorporate its minorities, immigrants, or sons of immigrants into their sporting structure. These players are products of a good sporting systerm. By contrast, many countries with large immigrant and/or minority population did not have players such as Mastroeni, Kuranyi, Asamoah, Castro, Ibrahimovic on their NTs should look deeply into their social syterm..

For this topic, we should distinguish foreign players with immigrants.


Having said that, it is easier said than done. If players such as Senna, Pepe, Deco, etc paid their tax, respected the law of their new countries, and obtained their passport through legal means, why shouldn't they be treated the same way as a native-born players? If they are bakers, butchers, lawyers, etc, they would be treated the same way as the native-born citizens. So why can't soccer players be the same?

 

Kuranyi was born as a German in Brazil (his father had emigrated from Germany to Brazil).

Anyway... as for distinguishing between foreign players immigrants: Sean Dundee, another popular example in those threads, despite never ever having played for an official German national team, came to Germany as a 20 years old to play professional football. He then became a German citizen and meanwhile has spent almost as many years in Germany as he had in South Africa. Why should anyone have the right to "distinguish" between him and other immigrants? However, professional athletes are actually treated differently than ordinary citizens as far as the citizenship process goes in Germany, as they are spared most of the requirements needed to get German citizenship (I disagree with a policy like this - but only because it's a ruling that doesn't treat people equally).

I don't really like the idea of a player playing for a national team who has never ever being in the country (Ailton and Qatar). But it's not as if this is common, despite the alarmists' claims. Almost all naturalized players have lifed in their adopted country before playing for the national team - if they came to play football, so what? Other immigrants came to work in factories.

FIFA isn't above the law. If they think otherwise I hope Blatter will have a long discussion with the EU court.

 

Just to add, that although Croatia's Eduardo is always mentioned in threads like this, more players went the other way around, born in Croatia and played EC's and WC's for different countries. Josip Webber and Branko Strupar for Belgium, Ivica Vastić for Austria, Igor Tomašić for Bulgaria.

 

And you forget Sladjan ibrahimovic, who's mother is Croatian.
He even wanted to play for Croatia but our scouts decided he were not good enough for our NT.
Lol.

Now he plays for Sweden ....

 

I doubt that the EU court has much to say in this matter... playing in a national team is not a job, after all (that's different to playing for the club!), I doubt that EU laws apply to nts

 

Stop naturalising Canadians as well.

 

I'd say there is a huge difference between players like Klose or Podolski and the mentioned Brazilians or similar players, like Sean Dundee.

On the one hand, you have players of German origin, who were born on former German territory, spending almost their entire youth in Germany, going through German youth ranks. On the other hand, you have players who have nothing to do with the country at all.

How Asamoah, born in Germany to a German mother, ended up in this discussion is beyond me.


There is nothing wrong with playing for a country, if that's where you spent most of your life and learned how to play football there. Especially if it's your country of origin.
What's troubling is if you use players who don't have anything to do with your country. Or, to a lesser degree, inviting someone who has dual-citizenship but was trained in the other country and never set foot in your country.

 

FIFA is doing business here and there's quite a lot of money involved, for all parties, including players (for which playing in the national team is of great importance to their careers). I'm really not into the details of European law, but I'm sure there are limits to what can FIFA get away with. What's next? Banning green-eyed players from playing for national teams?

 

Unless there is a German federal state named "Ghana" that somehow escaped my attention up until now, you're pretty much wrong here.

 

As per FIFA circular 901 a naturalized player without family ties needs to have lived continuously for at least two years in the territory of the relevant association. The often mentioned Sebastián Quintana has lived and played in Qatar since 2004.

 

That's a relatively recent, post-Ailton ruling, isn't it? Anyway, the current ruling is something I can get somewhat behind, without be entirely comfortable with it. However, if FIFA would start banning a hypothetical new Dundee from playing for Germany everything possible short of going to war with Switzerland D) should be done to stop Blatter.

 

The crux of the problem here is that FIFA cannot control the laws of individual countries. This is why it's pointless to try and paint with a broad brush here. Every player is different, and every case is individual. Hence the current approach of handling things on a case-to-case basis is probably the best one.

And any zero-tolerance laws are just going to prevent legitimate cases from playing for their country.