Players Switching Nationalities: A Long-Term Quandary

When Qatar offered Ailton, Dede, and Leandro a cool $1 million apiece to appear for its national team, the Brazilian players jumped at the chance. All three insisted it was purely the desire to appear in a World Cup that was calling them to turn out for the Gulf state. Ailton was vociferous:

“Money is not the decisive factor here, as I earn good money at Werder Bremen,” he said. “If Brazil ignores me for 2006, then I have to find another way to get there.”

Ailton and company convinced few, and most importantly failed to convince FIFA president Sepp Blatter. The Brazilian’s dream to play for Qatar was quashed when FIFA ruled that “a player must either have lived in a country for at least two years, or have a parent or grandparent who was born there.” Most considered this decision a victory for common sense. Allowing the Brazilians to become Qatari would have set a precedent in which money could entice players to switch nationalities, thus making national teams little different from their club counterparts.

If FIFA had not stood in their way, Ailton, Dede, and Leandro would have joined a large and prestigious group of players who have switched nationalities. In soccer history, players have repeatedly player for countries in which they were not born.

Italy was an early adopter of schemes to naturalize foreign players for its national team. Talented South American players who came to Italy to play for club teams were also enlisted for the Italian national team, despite having already represented their home countries. Stars of the early Italian national team like Omar Sivori and Jose Altafini had represented Argentina and Brazil respectively before turning out for the Azzurri.

Altafini (L) and Sivori (R)

Spain attempted to follow Italy’s lead in the 1950s. At this time, three of the biggest stars in world soccer were playing in Spain. With players the caliber of Ferenc Puskas (Hungary), Ladislav Kubala (Slovakia) and Alfredo Di Stefano (Argentina) in La Liga, why not give them Spanish passports? Surprisingly, FIFA said no, in the first instance of soccer’s governing body taking a stand against nationality switching. The decision then was a simple one: players could only appear for one national team in their careers.

This decision was sufficient for most cases of eligibility. In matters of eligibility for national teams, FIFA has tried to take as much of a hands-off approach as possible, leaving decisions largely up to countries themselves. FIFA’s regulations simply say that, “Any person holding the nationality of a country is eligible to play for the representative teams of the Association of that country.” Essentially, if a country gives a player citizenship, he or she is eligible.

Many players and countries have taken advantage of these lax regulations. One need not look far to find players born in a different country from the one whose national team they represent. Many attain their new citizenship after having played for a club team in another country for many years. Players who have done so include:

• Eduardo Da Silva: born in Brazil, represents Croatia
• Santos: born in Brazil, represents Tunisia
• Roberto Colautti: born in Argentina, represents Israel
• Alex: born in Brazil, represents Japan
• Guillermo Franco: born in Argentina, represents Mexico
• Deco: born in Brazil, represents Portugal

The naturalization of foreign players to make them eligible for a country’s national team is often controversial. Deco has been accepted as Portuguese because of his supreme talent; Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari’s attempts to do the same with his former teammate Derlei has been met with some resistance.

Such resistance often has undertones of colonialism. Some of the most controversial instances of nationality switching have occurred in the UK and Ireland. Mick McCarthy, Paul McGrath, John Aldrige, Tony Cascarino, and others are among a group of players born in England but who play for Ireland. When Roy Keane (b. 1971, Cork) blew up and walked out on his team before the 2002 World Cup, his parting shots at Yorkshire-born Mick McCarthy were unabashed.

“I didn’t rate you as a player,” Keane told him in front of the whole squad. “I don’t rate you as a manager and I don’t rate you as a person. You can stick the World Cup up your b*******.”

Mauro Camoranesi, who won the World Cup with the Italian team this past summer, is from Argentina and maintains pride in his home country. He doesn’t sing the Italian national anthem before games (he doesn’t know it) and he caused controversy when he said,

“I’m not a traitor, I still feel 100% Argentine and have done nothing to find myself in this situation. It’s only a football matter, nothing else.”

Camoranesi’s quote gets at the heart of the dilemma over nationality switching. On the one hand, it is a simple matter of each country’s laws that determine whether a player can play for its national team. But as any soccer fan knows, the game has far more emotional appeal than do law books. Who wears the shirt of a country’s national team matters to that country’s fans. Some may be willing to hold their nose and allow talented foreigners to become naturalized citizens, but don’t want to allow this.

When the three Brazilians attempted to play for Qatar, they were seen as the worst kind of nationality switchers. They may have denied that money was a factor in their decisions, but many doubted the seriousness of this claim. Clearly, paying for players to suit up for one’s national team is going too far. But what are the limits to which soccer fans are willing to go in order to see their country achieve success on the pitch? And in allowing some foreign-born players to suit up for them, do countries lose a sense of pride in their national teams? These questions have existed throughout soccer’s history and with globalization connecting the world’s people more and more, they are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Asia, Europe, History, Immigration, Latin America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.