Which nation should you play for?

A lot of discussion in the media this week regarding how far back in the family tree you should go to depend on which country you play for.

I'm my opinion you should only be allowed to play for the country you are born in or the country your mam and dad are born in. That's it. No grandparents, just parents.

Do you agree? Thoughts?

Its a fine line as you see a lot of it in Cricket, I agree no grandparents only parents nationality, born in yes. The fine line for me is, if someone moves to a country aged 2 or 3 but with different nationality parents and are brought up in that culture and feel as though they are that nationality is it right to say that they have to represent another?

The way I would want to see it is that they have spent the majority of their time in school education in the country, but this they'd probably have to be in school in the country at latest of age 12 or so anyway so probably would be a product of that countries sporting system anyway.

Country you're born in, or parents nationalities, thats it.

feяgie22 wrote:

Country you're born in, or parents nationalities, thats it.

Hypothetical situation

Welsh parents who live in England have gone over to Wales for 2 days to visit family, in which time child is born in Wales but would live in England all the time while growing up.

No claim for playing for England?

They are welsh. Born there. Parents are welsh. No brainer

Mackem wrote:

They are welsh. Born there. Parents are welsh. No brainer

Despite potentially only being in the country for a day?

Growing up rest of their life in England and if they called themselves English and didn't feel Welsh at all?

This is the thing about where people are schooled for me.

Why go on a holiday / road trip when you are about to give birth??

It was a hypothetical situation...

I think the country in which you're born, the country(ies) where your parents born, and the residency thing would also qualify, if it was longer. This Man Utd kid who has caused all this needs to have lived over here for a couple more years, I think, before he can actually qualify for England (I think it's  five years).

My shout would be that this needs to be longer, ten years as a minimum.

Going by the parents and where you're born rule would rule Mo Farah out of running for GB, even though he's lived in the UK for most of his life, married an English woman and had three English kids...

Wasn't one of his parents English? or was it his grandparents?

Ah, I stand corrected. Having checked Wiki, turns out he has an English father.

However, the points remains. Mo came to the UK aged 8. take the English father out of the equation, and going by other people's criteria, he'd not be able to compete for GB.

And as a slight aside, didn't Eoin Morgan play cricket for Ireland, and then turn English? To me, that's wrong.

It's a very shaded area. I have a northern Irish grandfather and being a kid was brought up with some of his ideologys. And I do class my self as half northern Irish.
I think its sometimes down to the individual. If a sports person has pride in playing for a country there were not born in but show passion I have not got a problem with it.
As already mentioned some of the best British sports stars were not born in the UK and have represented this country with pride and honour and give a great deal back to the nation.

Grecian wrote:

Ah, I stand corrected. Having checked Wiki, turns out he has an English father.

However, the points remains. Mo came to the UK aged 8. take the English father out of the equation, and going by other people's criteria, he'd not be able to compete for GB.

And as a slight aside, didn't Eoin Morgan play cricket for Ireland, and then turn English? To me, that's wrong.

Yeah but Cricket is screwed up, having two tiers associate and full members means players who want to play at the highest standard can't do it for their own country. Despite the fact that Ireland have beaten a lot of the top countries they are not allowed to play test cricket.

However its no worse to me than KP and Jonathon Trott, I don't believe either of them should have been picked for England as its taking advantage of the system, players like Craig Kieswetter less so as he was schooled at Millfield. Strauss and Prior I have no issue with, born in SA but English parents and moved back to UK around age of 6 max.

I agree if by residency then it should be 8 years minimum or so, probably 10.

there needs to be stricter rules based on the age you moved to a country. But if someone feels they are English because they have grown up in england, then fair play. I think Janazaj should not be considered as he joined UTD at 16 or 17. Louall Deng of basketball fame is a good example. He feels British because  he was schooled here, so most of what makes him who he is, is British. Teams filling academies with 15 year olds I think is too late, as they have grown up elsewhere. So then the rules should refer to parents.I dislike how Wilshere is being told to justify himself, as if he has said something terrible too.

So is Madeleine McCann eligible to play for Portugal?

Mackem wrote:

So is Madeleine McCann eligible to play for Portugal?

 

Mackem wrote:

So is Madeleine McCann eligible to play for Portugal?

   

on a serious note though if Arteta is eligible to play for England cos hes lived in England for so long and has never played for Spain what are peoples thoughts on that i think thats just as bad

Would never agree with picking Arteta for England, only reason he is eligible is because he hasn't been good enough for his own country.

Same reason I don't like Trott and KP playing for England at cricket.

boschbourne06 wrote:

on a serious note though if Arteta is eligible to play for England cos hes lived in England for so long and has never played for Spain what are peoples thoughts on that i think thats just as bad

He's not eligible - this came up a couple of years back. The tabloids got all excited, started getting 'quotes' from his 'friends' about how much he'd like to play for England, until someone asked him at a press conference. Arteta then explained that he'd played for Spain as a youth international, and was therefore ineligible (this is before they changed the rules).

The ones that irritate me are the players who aren't good enough to play for England, and then decide to adopt the country of their grandparents, like Shola Ameobi.  I can pretty much guarantee that if Jamaica reach the World Cup, a load of English players will suddenly declare themselves for them, like they did in 1998.

Marvin Elliott plays for Jamaica  

feяgie22 wrote:

Country you're born in, or parents nationalities, thats it.

I agree with this.

hodge13 wrote:

Marvin Elliott plays for Jamaica  

Which is fine, he plays in as many qualifiers as he's picked for. I'd be more  annoyed if he refused to play in any qualifiers, and then made himself available for finals.