my definition of naturalized means a player born outside said country and having no blood ties with said country. if they are of partial descent or were born in that country (even if they have no ancestral blood ties) they aren't naturalized. there's a HUGE difference between being a naturalized player and being a mercenary. Balotelli is Italian by birth =not naturalized Sergio Escudero is Japanese through citizenship= naturalized/not a mercenary most people know that a good number of capped Qataris are mercenaries (although Qatar is a nation with mostly immigrants). Cant name any off the top of my head but its debatable whether or not Sebastian Soria is a mercenary. AT LEAST he speaks Arabic (not too familiar on his transition to represent Qatar).
Countries that got colonized for long periods of time usually have a large pool of players to pick from overseas (eg: Philippines, India). Of course, their eligibility to play for their countries may also depend on the leniency of government regulations. Footballers of Indian descent living in the EU, for an instance, cannot play for the Indian national team unless they gave up their EU passports. Countries where warfare is or was commonplace also have high emigration rates, like Afghanistan or if we look further afield, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they also have the luxury of choosing multinational players with roots tying back to their parents/grandparents countries. Then there are countries which have high expatriate populations like many of the small Gulf nations, or places like Hong Kong, Singapore (or even Maldives, but most of our expats, bless them, are mad about cricket...) I personally do not have issues with naturalization as long as they have legitimate ties for the country. However, I always feel a tad uncomfortable when I see players from halfway around the world go to ply their trade in a foreign league, only to be stacking up national team caps for said foreign country just a few months down the line. From my observations, countries that persist in picking overseas players often perform very poorly in junior age groups. They simply cannot afford to go hunting for all age categories, often leading to hastily-picked local kids being sent for youth tournament qualifiers. This also begs the question; is this a more viable option than to invest more in grassroots development in their respective countries?
Care to explain your last paragraph? If you are referring to the Philippines, they actually haven't sent reps in youth tournaments in the past because they didn't have the budget to do so. Now with sponsors gained from the senior team's marketing appeal and with the help of FIFA, the AFC and the DFB(German fed sent a technical advisor to oversee the program) they have been able to institute long term programs and promote massive grassroots development efforts that were not possible before. It will take awhile before this efforts will bear fruit(initially they are aiming to field a competitive team to make the U 17 World Cup by 2019 and have started to form teams at the youngest age group levels that have been excelling in international tournaments) since they only started a few years ago, but they will eventually get there. Most importantly, there was very little interest among kids to play the sport in the past. Now with the success of the national team and with players to look up to that they can model themselves from, there has been a massive increase in kids at all age levels wanting to learn and play the game, and with professional league teams in the UFL, forming youth teams in all age levels competing against each other, they are now finding and developing talents that they hope to promote to the senior club level, and eventually to the national team.
Then we are left with these, many are too old to play for Hong Kong or even retired already. Hong Kong: Lawrence Chimezie Akandu (Age 40) - Nigeria [Mutual FC (Hong Kong Second Division)] Capped 7 Goal 1 Gerard Ambassa Guy (Age 36) - Cameroon [RETIRED] Capped 29 Goal 6 Cristiano Cordeiro (Age 41) - Brazil [RETIRED] Capped 13 Goal 1 Colly Ezeh Barnes (Age 34) - Cameroon [RETIRED] Capped 1 Goal 0 Godfred Karikari (Age 29) - Ghana [Beijing Baxy (Chinese First Division)] Capped 7 Goal 0 Moses Mensah (Age 36) - Ghana [YFCMD (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Wisdom Fofo Agbo (Age 35) - Ghana [Harbin Yiteng (Chinese Super League)] Capped 9 Goal 0 Christian Annan (Age 36) - Ghana [Kitchee (Hong Kong Premier League)] Capped 6 Goal 0 Roberto Junior (Age 31) - Brazil/Italy [Eastern SC (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Jean-Jacques Kilama (Age 29) - Cameroon [Eastern SC (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Itaparica (Age 34) - Brazil [South China (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Festus Baise (Age 34) - Nigeria/Ghana [Sun Pegasus (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Detinho (Age 41) - Brazil [South China (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Helio (Age 28) - Brazil [Kitchee (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Paulinho Piracicaba (Age 31) - Brazil [Kitchee (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Alex Akande (Age 25) - Nigeria [Kitchee (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped Sandro (Age 27) -Brazil [Wong Tai Sin (Hong Kong Premier League)] Uncapped
Precisely my point, but I was thinking about Afghanistan when I wrote that. Maldives tend to throw out laughably bad youth teams, mostly consisting of youngsters plying their trade at FAM's Youth "Development" Program, kinds who incidentally never go on to play football at any level beyond the age of 19. Yet we won against Afghanistan's U-19 team in the U-19 Asian Cup qualifiers, a first ever win for any of our youth sides in a competitive qualifier. I have massive respect for the effort the Philippines are putting into the development of their football. You lot are certainly approaching it the right way, unlike certain other nations who are trying to take the easy way out. India frustrates me and I can only imagine how their fans must feel. They have so much potential, yet always appear to reach out for their Bollywood stars (who will act all offended at the merest suggestion that they do not fund youth development) in an effort to attract more people to some glitzy, glamorous thing in an effort to make easy money.
I see. Well the Philippines still have a long way to go. Because of the long time neglect and the lack of interest, we don't have the infrastructure(lack of football fields) or sufficient qualified developmental coaches to harness the surge of interest in the sport, so it will take time for us to catch up. As for a stadium, remember our discussions during the Challenge Cup. A new stadium has finally been finished and is ready to host international friendlies and tournaments, which will supplement our traditional but ancient national football stadium.
BTW, sorry folks for getting out of topic. I just wanted to point out that using players from your diaspora can be a positive thing, if it leads to the the development of football at home as well.
overall it does not make a difference because Iran experiencing a talent drought right now (relative to Iran). dejagah and gucci were both born in iran. when we had half of our team playing in top european teams some years ago, we did not need any dejagahs or guccis. plus, part of the concept of nationality are genes and place of birth.
why are you comparing usa or france, who use players who were born in their country to immigrant parents, to qatar, who brings brazilians and africans into qatar FOR the purpose of playing for them, and after a just a short period of time, they are eligible. logic=lacked on your part.
environment is not the whole picture. it is genes + environment, and their genes are Iranian. part of the concept of nationality is race.
we have to draw the line somewhere. by his logic, we can say that south korean players are the product of the USA because the only reason south korea is not like north korea is due to the benefits they received from USA. and then we can say the only reason north korea did well in 1966 is due to USSR, so the system that raised the north korean players was soviet. lol so as you see, the line has to be drawn somewhere.
It's really sad that Iran relies on the rejects from other countries...Talent wise they used to be one of the bests in AFC.
Well Malaysia is contemplating making the jump: http://hareshdeol.blogspot.com/2015/03/should-we-include-naturalised-players.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: Foul (Foul!) A few examples were given: Japan who are among the best footballing nations in Asia, had assistance from naturalised players like Wagner Lopes, Daishiro Yoshimura, George Yonashiro, Ruy Ramos and Alex (Alessandro Santos) to spark their revolution in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Perhaps they would have eventually reached their current standards without the quintet – they had a solid development programme in place and the conviction to stick to their guns (Malaysia after all, tried to copy their blueprint) – but we won’t know now. Three days ago, former world champions Italy included two naturalised players – Argentine Franco Vazquez and Brazilian Martins Eders – in their 26-man squad to face Bulgaria in a Euro 2016 qualifier in Sofia on Saturday and a friendly against England three days later. The Italians have a history of using naturalised players with the inclusion of oriundi or South Americans with Italian stock in their 1934 World Cup winning squad. Spain World Cup winners in 2010 opted for a Brazilian-born striker in Diego Costa for last year’s tournament (although the move failed as they went home after the group stage). France and Holland have long utilised their ties with their migrant community and even ransacked their colonial lands for talented players. Germany who swept all before them in Brazil had Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose who were born in Poland but moved to Germany at a young age in their squad while a decade earlier they had the likes of Fredi Bobic (Slovenia), Paolo Rink (Brazil), Sean Dundee (South Africa) and Kevin Kuranyi (Brazil) among a handful of naturalised players in their line-ups. It took Germany 10 years to rise again and they did by embracing change. As Joachim Loew said after the World Cup final: “After 2000 and 2004, we were pretty much down as a nation. Sticking with our traditional German virtues was no longer enough – because all countries had them. We had to invest more in education and develop players to make them technically better. “Unless we changed, we would not go forward. We had to become better on the pitch. We created Centres of Excellence. They brought the results we have seen and we are grateful to the clubs who did that.” Which brings us to Malaysia. When Dollah Salleh suggested last week he was opened to naturalise players there was a lot of hue and cry – mostly from old-timers who had served the country well. No disrespect to them but times have changed and is it any wonder those who were for the idea were the ones currently plying their trade in the M-League. Having naturalised players could help Malaysia in the short-term but only if the right players – not any Tomaz, Dickson or Hari – were chosen. Preferably said players should have some sort of connection to Malaysia like Junior Eldstal and Brendan Gan. What we should not do is follow Qatar and buy foreign talent. As mentioned, this is a short-term solution until the National Football Development Programme (NFDP) bears fruits (hopefully). It took Germany 10 years to complete their Phoenix-like rise and it would take just as long for NFDP to start churning out the stars of tomorrow. In the meantime, if the giants of the game can swallow their pride and accept naturalised players, why can’t Malaysia?
Nothing wrong with adopting naturalised players. Especially in countries such as Malayasia where the footballers may come to have a new crack at life and a career. Australia similarly has a large migrant population move to Australia, and doesn't think twice about "naturalised" players. I think the impetus however needs to be on that these people aren't brought to the country and fast tracked to be naturalised for the national team. A club brings them in, and these players fall in love with the league, club, country etc. and just stay. Or they migrant at a young age with their parents etc. etc.
Indonesia just got another naturalized player. A Cameroonian player named Bio Paulin Pierre. He applied for Indonesian Citizenship by himself not from the Indonesian FA naturalized programme. I think he is been living in Indonesia for almost 10 years. A day after officially received his new citizenship, he got a call to play against Myanmar NT.
Not an option for the Philippines. They only recognize jus sanguinis(citizenship by blood), so only those who have a Filipino parent/s can play for the national team. But as an American as well, they also have the same policy as the Australians.
It's been a while since an adult naturalised player has represented Australia. Milan Ivanovic would be the highest profile player in the last 20 years.
Adama Traore wanted to but couldn't because he'd played for Cote d'Ivorie at a junior level. I think Australia did this more in other sports (in the past particularly).
Iain Ramsay I think is trying to get a gig with the Philippines national team (he won't make the Aussie team), and his mother is Filipino.