English, Scotish, Welsh, Irish?

[Spudulike]

Well said, your own circumstances are a great example of why the "country of birth" line of though is far too over-simplified.

I'd be interested to hear how people who think that a player who has lived in this country long enough to be a British citizen think he's not sufficiently British enough to represent the country on the football pitch when the same player would allowed to join the armed forces and represent this country in a war...

Your post and the preceding one make good points imo. I stand by the 'country of birth' stance but if the rules were more subtle I'd still find it difficult for us to do a Jack Charlton and be digging up tenuous links between the UK and 'a.n.other' foreign player. The Man U lad example is embarrassing - an Albanian who lived in Belgium - what must England mean to him emotionally? (taking the point about an emotional link on board).

I wouldn't want an Albanian-Belgian in our Army either!!

 

[shedpensioner]

Well said, your own circumstances are a great example of why the "country of birth" line of though is far too over-simplified.

I'd be interested to hear how people who think that a player who has lived in this country long enough to be a British citizen think he's not sufficiently British enough to represent the country on the football pitch when the same player would allowed to join the armed forces and represent this country in a war...

Joining the armed forces is far more important IMO than playing football, and for me thats what is embarrassing about touting for players, or picking up players that have fulfilled the residency rules.

This game that we all love is just a game, it's 22 people kicking a bag of air around in the hope that they can get that bag of air into an area we call a goal, so that 11 of those people can gloat over the other 11, it's not going to create World peace or stop famine cure illness or any of the things that really matter in this World.

So in the consequence (or should that be inconsequence) of this, would it not be better that a national football team is made up from people that were born or whose parents were born, or grandparents, or at the very least who were raised in that nation that they represent?

 

[bluedave]

Joining the armed forces is far more important IMO than playing football, and for me thats what is embarrassing about touting for players, or picking up players that have fulfilled the residency rules.

This game that we all love is just a game, it's 22 people kicking a bag of air around in the hope that they can get that bag of air into an area we call a goal, so that 11 of those people can gloat over the other 11, it's not going to create World peace or stop famine cure illness or any of the things that really matter in this World.

So in the consequence (or should that be inconsequence) of this, would it not be better that a national football team is made up from people that were born or whose parents were born, or grandparents, or at the very least who were raised in that nation that they represent?

Interesting argument, I agree that the national team is relatively unimportant but that leads me to take exactly the opposite view. It would seem very odd to me if the eligibility criteria for the national team was tighter than that for the armed forces.

As for the Belgian/Albanian kid at Man Utd, I didn't even see the game but the consensus seems to be that he was moderately impressive. What I find most embarrassing is that we are talking so much about a player who's had a single decent game, regardless of his current or potential nationality.

 

[shedpensioner]

Interesting argument, I agree that the national team is relatively unimportant but that leads me to take exactly the opposite view. It would seem very odd to me if the eligibility criteria for the national team was tighter than that for the armed forces.

As for the Belgian/Albanian kid at Man Utd, I didn't even see the game but the consensus seems to be that he was moderately impressive. What I find most embarrassing is that we are talking so much about a player who's had a single decent game, regardless of his current or potential nationality.

Then we should maybe totally bomb off international football and just have league representive football, i.e la liga vs Serie A

 

[bluedave]

Then we should maybe totally bomb off international football and just have league representive football, i.e la liga vs Serie A

I'm genuinely don't understand how that follows on from my post... I think it sounds like a terrible idea by the way.

 

[shedpensioner]

I'm genuinely don't understand how that follows on from my post... I think it sounds like a terrible idea by the way.

Sorry when I re-read my post it was a bit bizarre.

My point was if we're going to have international players playing for nations that they are not from then for me it makes the playing of international pointless, or even more pointless depending on your view of international football.

My point from there was that we may as well have representive league football instead so that it doesn't matter about country of origin anymore, but is about country of residence.

Obviously this is just my opinion, and you're right it's a horrible idea, but IMO thats almost the way things are going with players being picked up on very tenuous links.

It's also very short-sighted, instaed of looking to plug gaps by using 'foreign' players why not look at coaching players properly from a young age, then none of this would be a question.

 

[Jonty]

Country of birth or your parents nationality in my opinion, I think the whole Januzaj affair has been ridiculous and an embarassment.

 

[BlueBosnian]

It's tough for some to understand. The word "nationality" has a different meaning from one country to another. While in some more progresive countries the people have really lost identity of their background due to massive migrations of others, there are countries that still stress the idea of nations and nationalities. Places where you might not be looked at as one of their own even if your ancestors have lived in that country for hundreds of years. Believe me, I come from one of 'those' countries and I know. Jonuzaj's story is almost identical.