Player Eligibility and Switching National Teams: Case Studies & General Discussion

Brazil's long decline is not great news for the competitiveness of the women's game globally. Luckily Western Europe is beginning to catch up and should provide steeper competition for the USWNT going forward.

I blame the Brazilian federation. There's no reason on talent Brazil should not make minimum QFs at every WWC. It's solely down to mismanagement imo.

 

It seems weird that a country with so many immigrants would have only had to get FIFA exemptions/switches for three players.

 

More like misogyny.

 

US soccer culture is pretty white and middle-class, though. Just take a look at any of the recent WC lineups (for either sex).

 

Yeah, didn't feel it was in the purview of this thread to get too into depth about that, just a quick observation I wanted to make.

Argentina has similar issues (or worse). Latin Europe doesn't though, not to that degree anyway, which is interesting given that the culture is pretty similar.

 

FIFA has put out a video on the Sept. 2020 rules changes. There isn't a lot new in the video, but there's also a link to the Commentary on the Rules... which does give some additional insight.

https://www.fifa.com/who-we-are/new...-eligibility-to-play-for-representative-teams

One thing I noticed is the new "3 caps or less before age 21" proviso doesn't have an age requirement if the matches are played before the rule was adopted in Sept. 2020. There are a lot of other tidbits in the document, including footnotes that reference specific CAS cases.

 

Have there been any examples where a player has played for three different national teams competitively?

For example: Carl Jenkinson competitively played for England u17, Finland u19, and then England u21 competitively and senior friendlies.

Could somebody, for instance, play for England u17, Ireland u21, and then the Scotland senior team in competitive matches? Has a player done this in the past?

 

Fantastic! Happy he got out his purgatory.

 

Plus, the Atlas Lions are actually very good.

 

Aymeric Laporte has been granted a Spanish passport and should now be eligible to switch allegiance from France to Spain, having only represented France at youth level. As long as the paperwork goes through on time Laporte will likely be called up to the Spain squad in a few weeks time. Luis Enrique apparently asked the RFEF to look into Laporte's availability.
https://www.marca.com/en/football/spanish-football/2021/05/11/609a873746163f89298b4576.html

The news isn't being taken well in France.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...t-SLAM-Aymeric-Laporte-allegiance-switch.html

 

Did he have Spanish nationality when he represented France?

 

According to the Marca article I linked, his "Spanish nationalisation has been approved and will be officially confirmed on Wednesday" which was yesterday.
Born in Agen, France, he had spent 8 seasons with Athletic Bilbao before moving to Manchester City.

 

As far as I tell from the FIFA statutes, even with last year's update, he can't switch unless he held Spanish nationality at the point he first represented France. If he was automatically Spanish by descent, he would be okay to switch.

 

This is one that you have to dig into the additional notes on the statutes that FIFA provides.

Let's start with the basic provision:

Section 9, Change of Association

b) the player:
i) was fielded in a match in an official competition at any level (with the exception of “A” international level) in any kind of football for his current association;
ii) at the time of being fielded for his first match in an official competition in any kind of football for his current association, he did not hold the nationality of the association which he wishes to represent;
iii) at the time of being fielded for his last match in an official competition in any kind of football for his current association, he had not turned 21 years old; and
iv) meets any of the requirements provided in article 6 or article 7

Here's the provision that waives the age requirement for players who would be too old under the new rules and haven't played for their old federation after the new rules went into action:

Considering the principle of legal certainty, the age requirement (“he had not turned 21 years old”) shall not apply to players who played their last match in an official competition in any kind of football for their current association prior to 18 September 2020, the date that the September 2020 amendments entered into force.

https://resources.fifa.com/image/up...resentative-.pdf?cloudid=ro8mje8vw98yp3rvfbmi

So there's a bit of a grandfathering rule for those who wouldn't be able to take advantage of the new rules.

 

Thanks for the reply. I must've been looking at an old version of the regulations.

There's going to be some very happy AFC countries with these rules.

 

So all this time I thought these rules would only hurt Big teams and help the little teams from smaller confederations.
But here is a case of Big team stealing from another Big team.

Cool.

 

I imagine Spain and Italy will benefit with their diaspora communities in South America.

 

Interesting case of Borna Sosa, who represented Croatia at the youth levels, but wanted to change to Germany.

https://www.croatiaweek.com/borna-sosa-not-eligible-to-play-for-germany-bierhoff-confirms/

Key facts:

* Mother was born in Germany.
* Recently went through the process to claim that citizenship (not a naturalization process per se).
* Has represented Croatia in competitive matches at the U21 (U23 outside UEFA) level.
* Never played a senior NT match for Croatia.
* 23 years old
* Last played for Croatia in the UEFA U21 Qualifying in November 2020.

Because the age restriction (normally under 21) was waived for older players under the new rules and he hadn't played a NT competitive match, it seemed he was eligible. He didn't need to go through the FIFA naturalization eligibility rules, but he qualified anyway.

But the last bullet point above seems to have done him in. The new rules went into effect on Sept. 18th, 2020, but if you were 21+ and played a match for your old federation after that date, you lose that one-time window available.

That's my interpretation of why he wasn't eligible. If you read things differently, feel free to chime in.

 

An interesting (to me) quirk in the international qualification Regulations that sees a person who has already played 5 times for the Australian National team set foot on Australian soil for the first time in the lead up to our clash with Saudi Arabia on Thursday. Fran Karacic finally gets to see the country he represents 3 years after first joining a training squad and being cleared to play for Australia after representing Croatia at under 21 level.

 

Interesting trivia worthy of this thread...
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/t...-fascinating-trivia-facts-and-stories.611525/

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but checking his International appearances, he never played officially played for Australia until the same year (2021), as he was only previously on the bench and did not appear in one other match in 2018.

 

You are correct. That's why I said joined a training squad three years ago rather than played for Australia.