Yes he has. He already has had a Filipino passport since he was 10 y/o from what I have read. He just needs to renew it.
A-league regular Iain Ramsay finally made his debut for the Philippine national team in recent WC qualifiers this month(6/15) and has already paid immediate dividends. He has scored a goal (in only his 2nd game with the team) in the Philippine's 2nd WC qualifying game against Yemen helping them win the game 2-0 and his pace and creativity has caused problems for our opponents on the left side of the pitch.
Indonesia have some as I remember. One of them from Nigeria just moved to Thai Premier League: http://footballchannel.asia/2015/06/22/post4755/
Acc. to Wikipedia, Timor Leste has naturalized players several Brazilian-born footballers, who are not of Timorese descent and had not necessarily played in the Timorese League. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timor-Leste_national_football_team Acc. to happy in the Group A WC qualifier thread, they have now naturalized 2 more strikers: "2014 Thailand Premier league top scorer, Heberty, had naturalised and is qualified to play for Timor Leste. Heberty had played in Japan for Cerezo Osaka & Thespa Kusatsu. Also naturalised is Thiago Cunha, who had been playing for Chonburi FC since 2012" How is this possible? I thought there were strict requirements by FIFA requiring players to be related by blood(at least through their grandparents) or fulfilling a 5 year residency requirement for naturalized citizens before they can suit up for the national team in official tournaments.
Were they, their parents or grandparents born in East Timor? Edit: looks like they are of Timorese descent http://footballchannel.asia/2015/05/16/post3663/
Well they are apparently still awaiting FIFA clearances before they can play. http://footballchannel.asia/2015/06/19/post4582/ The Wikipedia article must be wrong then, because it states that some of these players do not have Timorese descent.
Well East Timor was colonized by the Portuguese, lot of Timorese were taken to Portugal and Brazil. Just like the Indonesian-Dutch.
http://jakartacasual.blogspot.com/2015/07/bangladesh-go-down-naturalisation-road.html The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday started the official procedure of naturalising three African footballers in order to make them eligible for the Bangladesh national team. The federation held talks with the three booters -- Ghana's Samad Yussif, Guina's Ismael Bangoura and Nigeria's Kingsley Chigozie – heard their demands and acquired their signatures on the provided forms, which will be forwarded to the home ministry within a couple of days to expedite the process. The three booters in question are already eligible to apply for Bangladeshi citizenship since each of them has already spent more than four years continuously in this country. If the home ministry is convinced, the procedure of naturalisation may take one month in the least and six months at most. If citizenship is awarded, the federation will then apply to the FIFA Status Committee to make them eligible to represent Bangladesh national team.
That is what I said earlier. Article says more than 4 years so maybe they were thinking this players would be available after the naturalization process will be finished.
Applicable ruling: Fifa rules(Article 7 of the Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes) state that a player born in another territory must live in his adopted nation for five years after reaching the age of 18 to be deemed eligible. So the 5 year count must start after the age of 18. This has come into focus recently after New Zealand player and South African born 20 y/o Dekland Wynne was declared ineligible by the OFC despite the fact he moved to New Zealand as a child and has met the 5 year residency rule. The funny thing was that he has already participated in the FIFA U20 World Cup qualifiers and made his debut for the All Whites men's team on 2014 in matches against China and Thailand. As a result the New Zealand U23 team was disqualified from the OFC Olympic qualifying competition despite actually winning the semifinals against Vanuatu(changed to a 3-0 loss instead). In the light of this ruling, I would think that other AFC countries can likewise make sure that other countries in the AFC(particularly Qatar) also fulfills this particular requirement as well.
The other side of the coin is that it disadvantages players who have legitimately immigrated with their parents, like Wynne. I notice that Gedion Zelalem, who has changed nationality after playing for Germany, has managed to get Fifa to allow his change.
That is correct rooboy. The USSF might have suffered the same fate as New Zealand because of their use of the Berlin born Zelalem for their U20 team. In his case, nobody in the CONCACAF or the other confeds has complained yet, so he was allowed to play just like Wynne was allowed to play in the OFC U20 qualifying. Technically if another team had complained, the US U20 team could have been disqualified from participation in the FIFA U20 WC finals which was held in New Zealand. Vanuatu actually brought out Wynne's status into the limelight by complaining to the OFC in the recent U23 Olympic qualifying forcing a ruling to be made. Anyways New Zealand is appealing the OFC ruling although probably too late for preventing Fiji from claiming the slot. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...football-launch-appeal-over-olympic-expulsion Hopefully FIFA stands by the OFC ruling to make it even more difficult for countries like Qatar to start bringing youngsters from Africa wholesale just to reinforce their team.
If the OFC ruling is upheld, it is possible this might also affect some of the Aussie national youth team players moving forward.
This is only an issue if the naturalized player has not applied for, and had approved a FIFA change of Association (like Deklan Wynne had not). These articles: http://www.sydneyfc.com/article/mabil-gets-in-the-green-and-gold-groove/x0och2t8uipe1n8ikn0jt7ew7 http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/ibiniisei-wins-world-cup-waiting-game-20110715-1hhud show that foreign-born Australian Youth players, who moved to Australia as children needed a FIFA change of Association permit before playing for Australian Youth Squads.
I suggest that the Australian fed clarify this issue with FIFA before fielding the appropriate players, in order to avoid what happened with NZ from happening to them as well. Anyway since NZ has appealed the ruling, a definite decision will be made on this issue, to avoid any future disagreements from cropping up.
A way out for Wynne and other potential players on the NZ youth teams listed in the article: "New Zealand Football would need to apply to Fifa for an exception to the rules stated in Article 7, something that happens regularly in world football. The latest example of Fifa handing out an exception was to Arsenal's German-born starlet Gedion Zelalem, who grew up in the United States and wished to represent them at the Fifa U-20 World Cup. After applying for an exception in January, Zelalem was confirmed as a United States player by April." http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/footba...r-new-zealand-again-after-eligibility-blunder
Right, he would still be ineligible acc. to Article 7 as the exception was not granted before hand. Acc. to this website, the legal battle if they plan to push through with this(they are depending upon lawyers to figure out if they have a case) will take months, which means that it will be highly unlikely that they can prevent Fiji from claiming the OFC slot for the Olympics. http://www.odt.co.nz/sport/football/349159/football-holes-nzfs-appeal
In another forum someone brought up Qatari's playing in Europe, and pointed to KAS Eupen in the Belgian second division as an example of Qatari's making it to Europe. However that is not the whole Picture. KAS Eupen are owned by ASPIRE Sports Academy (an Qatari academy owned by the royal family). Belgium also don't have any restrictions on the number of foreign players in their teams. So at the moment the team consists of 6 Qatari, 11 African, 6 Belgians and 4 Europeans. This article http://backpagefootball.com/qatar-kas-eupen-strange-union/83708/ makes an interesting point about how Qatar builds their nation team using KAS Eupen. In effect the Qatari government will groom these African players in a European competition in an attempt to lure them to switch to the Qatar national team. This is a different ploy to the current situation where they generally pay for them to go to Qatar, as this way they let the players live the life of playing European football without having to live in Qatar. How long before we see some of these names on their national team sheets?
I wonder how strict the "continuously lived" in a country for 5 years is? Or what their definition is? If their 'home' residence is in Qatar but play in Belgium would this count as "living" in the country? I wonder what the "address" of their employer is too ... All these could be set up to show that they are Qatari residents working for a Qatari company in a foreign country. They could spend their off-season in Qatar too (and most of their pre-season). If their family moved to Qatar too ... this would start to qualify them as "continuously lived" in a country under the Australian laws.