Matty said:
I don't think it's a black and white issue (no pun intended). I don't agree that the only fact to consider should be the country you were actually in when you were born. What if you were born in, say, Africa, but spent almost your entire life, from the age of lets say 8, through to your present age of, for arguments sake, 30 living in England and believing yourself to be English. Should you be banned from representing England? Should you only be eligible for your country of birth? Guess we should hand back all Mo Farah's gold medals then?
I'm not a fan of the nationalisation of players in the way that some countries do it. Diego Costa for example is a Brazillian who has been part of friendly squads for Brazil, but never played a competitive match for them. He has spent the last 5 years living and working in Spain, so is now eligible for Spanish citizenship. The Spanish FA, and Costa himself, now want him to play for Spain. I'm sorry but, for me, Costa isn't Spanish. He's 25 years old, he spent 20 years living outside of Spain (18 years in Brazil and 2 in Portugal) and 5 years living in Spain. For me that's the kind of national switch that needs to be prevented.
The British nations don't follow the FIFA guidelines around switching nationality, we insist that, for a player to become "English" he must have spent at least 5 years, prior to the age of 18, in education within the British Isles. So the player must have been on British soil from at least the age of 13, probably earlier than that. At least with that distinction the player must have spent some of their formative years, as a child, growing up and learning about this country whilst also living within it. I'm happy with that rule. Januzaj doesn't qualify under those rules (he only moved to England in 2011 at age 16) so, unless the English FA has a change of heart, it doesn't matter how much Hodgson watches him, or how much he wants to be English, he'll never be eligible for us to pick under our own rules.
im indian, born in england.
that makes me as eligible to play for england as any other man born in england.
my parents are born in india so given the talent (which i haven't been) at any sport for example cricket, i should be able to play for either england or india. england as i'm born here and india as my parents are born there.
if its true that kevin peitersons mum was born in england, then that effectively makes him half english and perfectly entitled to play for england.
i would say that those 2 are the only reasons in my opinion that anybody should be able to represent any given country. to represent a country because you've lived there for a long time is (again in my opinion) ridiculous.
what is the point of national sports if it is made up of people from all over the world who are neither born here or have parents that were born here?
there has to be some kind of legitimate attachment to the country.
at the end of the day it should be like family, you can't pick and choose. if your born in a particular country you represent that country or the country your parents were born in. either that or nothing.
put it this way, do you think jacuzzi would think twice about playing for england if he was spanish? would arteta have ever have considered playing for england if he was in the spanish team?
the simple fact is that most of those people only consider england because they aren't good enough for their own countries or vice versa their own countries aren't good enough for them. but as i said you shouldn't be able to pick and choose.
and to answer your question on mo farrah, hes a legend, an arsenal fan like myself, seems like a really nice bloke, great role model and ambassador, but the simple facts are that he's NOT ENGLISH if he wasn't either born in this country or doesn't have parents that were born in this country. therefore he shouldn't be allowed to represent england as other then the fact hes lived here, he has no claim to being english.
