[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bjkk411Mpc[/youtube]
posted already?

I agree with Pink. If someone moves to a certain country and they have adapted well enough to emotionally consider themselves of dual nationality then they're welcome to play for their adopted country. Admittedly, this does encounter a problem when certain players may choose to play for their adopted country on the basis that they're not good enough to play for their birth country (eg. Almunia).

i think that if you can get a birth on a national team because your skill set earns you that spot, then have at it.

singapore buys olympic athletes. not that anyone other than chinese people every notice that. and then there is hannah wilson who was raised in hong kong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Wilson
Originally the IOC's policy would have barred Wilson from representing Hong Kong (she held a British passport, and being still a minor she could not renounce her British citizenship), which was a cause for distress throughout Hong Kong. She has since renounced her British citizenship to take up Chinese citizenship and a Hong Kong SAR passport in her pursuit to represent Hong Kong in swimming for at least the next decade.

http://www.rferl.org/content/athletes-s ... 45792.html passport switching for sport

Don't you think buying athletes makes a mockery out of international sports? There has to be a set of standards in place otherwise you are diluting the intent of international football and effectively reducing it to a form of club football by another name.

okay, what exactly is the intent of international football, that you would call immigrants foreigners?

My standards are pretty simple. Let's look at the footballer Panagiotis Kone. He was born in Albania and moved to Greece at the age of two. He grew up in Greece and played in the Greek youth system before representing them at senior level. He has every right to play for Greece despite not being born there. The age at which one moves is irrelevant to me. As long as the player has genuine intentions and did not represent his home country before I have no problem with it.

What I do have a problem with is the mercenary. Importing players from another country by paying them? That's absurd.

Well, if you played table tennis really well and were a Chinese national, wouldn't you like a Singapore passport? It is not like the Chinese have the same chance of securing a position on the national team as someone from the UAE does. You have a romantic notion of sport. Athletes should be able to make a living. So, my only limit would be that you can't fraud whatever rules are currently in place, in a given country.

I disagree and the irony here is that these countries are often bypassing their own citizenship laws to import players. If these Brazilian footballers came to Qatar as migrant laborers it would be practically impossible for them to gain citizenship, even if they get married. Children of foreigners in Qatar don't even have the same rights as natural born children do.

Having in mercenaries in football not only makes a mockery out of the whole thing, it's a slap in the face to people who are actually trying to gain citizenship in said country. Just because there are always exceptions and players/countries looking to exploit loopholes for their own gain, doesn't mean we should always tolerate it. There is a huge difference between Panagiotis Kone playing for Greece and Qatar importing B-list Brazilian players for the World Cup. Context matters here.

Context matters. I vaguely recall mr blatter echoing your views on qatar and brazil. But if qatar is building up its local clubs with Brazilian expats over a decade, i don't think i have an issue with those players representing qatar if they are residents. As for the path to immigration being unfair, many talented people get to q jump, especially scientists and the wealthy. If brazilians can carve out a niche in doha, more power to them.

Why does birth give you more rights? It is a hugely random thing, the birth lottery.

I'm fine with that, too. What is happening now is most certainly not that.



This is true, but not so much in Qatar if I remember correctly.



Birth is irrelevant to me.

I hate international breaks.

Me too

The worst

Especially when the USA has nothing to play for

I guess it would have been cool to see Mexico eliminated.

http://eaglesthatlooklikearsenewenger.tumblr.com/

Quality.