Knox

I fully appreciate the situation with the passport situation between the two countries, and its very hard for Fifa to rule otherwise as long as they are applicable for duel-nationality.

It must be disappointing for the IFA to have invested in players at a youth level but to see them simply switch countries at a more senior level.

ericcantona7

what if someone comes over at the age of 4/5, goes to an English school, doesn't remember living in any other country, yet can't play for England because he was born elsewhere and his parents were too?

Craig[EVE]

Give it a few more years and we can have Arteta

Tomek Grabowski

thats pretty much what happened to Ryan Giggs.

ericcantona7

thats pretty much what happened to Ryan Giggs. </BLOCKQUOTE>

except he wanted to play for Wales.

Tomek Grabowski

whether he wanted to or not, he was only eligible for Wales.

thats pretty much what happened to Ryan Giggs. </BLOCKQUOTE>

except he wanted to play for Wales. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Tomek Grabowski

whether he wanted to or not, he was only eligible for Wales.

ericcantona7

whether he wanted to or not, he was only eligible for Wales.

thats pretty much what happened to Ryan Giggs. </BLOCKQUOTE>

except he wanted to play for Wales. </BLOCKQUOTE> </BLOCKQUOTE>

indeed, though apparently the English FA (unsure as to whether with the blessing of the Welsh FA), were willing to break the gentlemen's agreement and let him play for England if he wanted.

mark g

I think that's a valid argument for the qualification by residency rule, but personally i think it needs to be tightened up. Perhaps one way would be to have an age cut off, so that you would only ever be eligible for countries you were eligible for at the age of say 18 or 21.

That allows for the situation there, where someone would have genuine ties to a country, but stops the slightly mercenary aspect of someone who simply wants to play international football for whoever will have him.

deez0r

Escape route to use this as an excuse to get to play for Ireland (I use this as an example as most of the time its Northern Irish born players switching to play for Ireland, mainly due to the face there are a lot more Catholics in Northern Ireland than Protestants in Ireland).

The Ryan Giggs example is different, if he has been there nearly his whole life then he should be elligble but this is not happening. Players that are using the Irish/British passport situation in Northern Ireland primarily are living most of their life still in that country, usually only moving to England to play in a better league, but still using the "Im a Catholic so I should be playing for Ireland" situation even though they probably have never lived or been their for an extended period of time in their lifes so therefore imo should be something against this as Northern Ireland and Ireland if any have come from down south to play for the north could be losing out on valuable players.