As I write this while watching England defeat Bulgaria 4-0, the Mikel Arteta saga seems to have thankfully come to an end. Arteta seemingly ineligible to play for England due to the unearthing in the rulebook of FIFA article 18.1 (a), which says: "At the time of a player's first full or partial appearance in an international match in an official competition for his current association, he must already have the nationality of the representative team for which he wishes to play." So, reading through that rule it means that because Arteta featured for Spain in the under-16 European Championships and the FIFA World Championships at under-17 level, then the only way he could now play for England is if he held a UK passport at the same time. That finishing any plans Fabio Capello may have had to pick the San Sebastian native based on the five years residency in the United Kingdom rule. That situation in itself can't be right in my opinion, basically for me the rule should be that you are born in the country you choose to play for or one of your parents were, and that's it. Having it as an ability to be picked if one of your grandparents was born in the country is just one step too far for me, after all that means a player who is 25, could have a parent who is 60 and therefore a grandparent who is 95. Are we really saying it is right that a player could be chosen on the basis that his family have potentially had nothing to do with that country for nearly a century? It's not just Arteta though unsurprisingly with Scotland boss Craig Levein also looking to take advantage of the rules, or bend them depending on what your point of view is. Levein however thwarted in his efforts to get Shola Ameobi in the Scotland squad. Levein had been thinking that Ameobi would be eligible for his side because the Nigerian-born striker has lived in the United Kingdom since the age of five and has not been capped at senior level for England. That idea went down the pan though, and I for one am glad it did, the reason for it failing being because of an unwritten rule between the four home nations that players, before the age of 16, have to spend five years in a country's education system before they can play for its national team. That gentleman's agreement meaning that Levein was unable to pick the Spaniard Nacho Novo when that thought was being floated about, but he was able to call up Saddleworth-born winger Andrew Driver. Going back to Ameobi, this is surely where arguing against any possibility of him ever being picked for Scotland hardly needs any persuasive point being put on it, but I'll try anyway. How can it be right that someone who was born in Nigeria, has lived for the rest of his life in England, has played all his professional football in England and has no Scottish ancestry could be chosen for Scotland? I really don't think it needs me to explain that that just doesn't sound at all right. Ironically enough Jamie Carragher, who seems to think he can pick and choose when he is going to play for England, agrees, as he commented to talkSPORT on player eligibility: "To be honest, I think it should be English players playing for England. Other countries do break or bend the rules. But I also think the manager should be English, even though I've still got great respect for Fabio Capello. But with England I believe they should all be English, the players, management and even the medical staff. That's what it's all about." For what it's worth, I obviously agree with Carragher as far as players are concerned, and I'm about three-quarters of the way down the line with him on the management issue as well, although one standout problem with that is that you're likely to have Harry Redknapp being involved at some point. I do draw the line at medical staff though, and you wonder where he is going next with that one, presumably when he got his multipack of World Cup Walkers Crisps he chucked out all the foreign muck and only ate the Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding flavour. Gareth Barry also weighing in on the issue, as he told the Daily Mirror : "A lot of other countries are doing it. The German team in the summer had a high percentage of players who weren't born in the country. It's such a tough debate. It's like anything, if rules are there, laws are there, then it can happen and if they can help make you better then you've got to try to use them. It's such a hard debate and I myself don't know where to stand on it." Of those German players Barry is presumably talking about, Mesut Ozil was actually born in Germany, Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose were born in historically German parts of Poland. Piotr Trochowski was born in Poland but his parents moved to Germany on the back of the "right of return for those of ethnic German ancestry". While Marko Marin was born in Bosnia and moved to Germany at a young age, and finally Cacau was born in Brazil but got a German passport after living there for eight years. So, of the five born outside Germany, I would only make a case for three players being eligible, those being Podolski, Klose, and Trochowski, and even then only because Germany is a special case due to the aftermath of World War Two country border changes. But then is that fair in itself? Surely the rule has to be the same for every country, and going back as far as World War Two anyway takes us down the route of time and the grandparent issue as well, it is after all 65 years now since hostilities ended. But, one thing you can be sure of is that this issue is going to run and run, and it only promises to get more complicated I would have thought due to ever changing employment and work permit law. At least there is some kind of rule in place for FIFA to fall back on as far as cases like Arteta are concerned, but while there remain loopholes in the laws human nature will mean people will look to exploit them. You'd think having tight and fast rules would be the job of the footballing authorities to get right, but, it's no real surprise to see that they haven't. |