FIFA 2010 World Cup: Players playing in the World Cup representing Countries they weren’t born in, the FIFA controversy
The greatest things that are admired by many football fans about the World Cups are it being held on an international level. The World itself then represents a variety of players, the best from the world and from all kinds of backgrounds and races. The World Cup becomes a reason for unity a reason for everyone to be linked to each other; global village if you may call it.
Another factor that proves great attraction for footballing fans is the size of the event. The World Cup is considered to be the one of the biggest sporting extravaganza on the planet. Fans from all over the globe travel to witness the event, while the rest of them around the world, leave all their worldly duties and glue their eyes to their television sets during the progress.
The tournament has had many global implications. For instance, it stopped the civil war going on in Ivory Coast in 2006, when the tournament was held in Germany. Then the tournament’s revival after the World War saw many emotional hearts.
One of the main perspectives of the tournament is the fact that countries fight for glory against each other. Even non footballing fans tune into the match just to witness the encounter. Players from one country battle against the stars of another. However, this last statement is not entirely true.
There are many featured players from a team that weren’t actually born in the country they represent and each time the World Cup or an international event occurs this issue is raised again.
This World Cup too has ample quantities of players like these. The list starts with surprising entries of Miroslav Klose, Deco, Marcos Tulio Tanaka, Pepe, and Benny Fielhaber. These are just a handful of names in the list, otherwise there are many more.
This does lead one to think that under what circumstances do players make such decisions and how do they come about in the end. It is interesting to know that in reality the process is really easy. One answer to these situations is the dual citizenship; this can requested for or can be gained by parents of different nationalities. One example can be of Zinedine Zidane who could either play for Algeria or France.
Whatever World Cup it maybe this is a tradition that has happened since the first World Cup. The World Cup of 1934 proved to be really controversial, thanks to this fact. It so happened that in the World Cup of 1934, Italy had three Argentinians playing for them. Even more so, one of them actually scored the goal that helped Italy win the final that year.
If FIFA all of a sudden one day decides to ban this rule, the repercussions would be immense. If they strictly bound everybody to play for the country they are born in, then this would become an international matter of injustice. However, FIFA rules allow uncapped players to switch allegiances if they have lived in a country for at least five years or have a parent or grandparent who was born there.
If that were the case then the Americans would be a very happy footballing nation, as they have had many star footballers born in their country that eventually decided to play from other powerhouses of football. One great example would be of Giuseppe Rossi, whose birth took place in New Jersey. Ironically, he must have wanted to play for the Americans after the poor Italian campaign.
Gonzalo Higuain is another popular example of this situation. The Argentinean star striker was born in France but played for the Argentinians and helped them reach the quarter finals in the World Cup in South Africa. The 22 year old player for Real Madrid even scored a hatrick and was one of the top scorers of the tournament. He helped immensely against South Korea and Mexico being the perfect man to finish the things at the end and bringing the ball in the net. Had he been playing for France, things would have been very different for the Les Bleus as they required a perfectly positioned man like him.
Still it would be the Germans that would fall down the most if this law was introduced. Their star forward Klose, who had an immense part in bringing Germany to the position it’s in today. This is a prime example of the ‘country switching law’ because if switching sides was banned, Germany would be on a very different roster.
Klose is not the only player in the squad for the Germans. Many important players would have to be axed from their teams if the nationality issue is brought about. While many players would have been axed from the German squad, nearly the whole Algerian team would have to be kicked out of the tournament if this rule was introduced. The reason is that the team has a total of 17 French players playing for them. Nearly all of them are in the youth squad of France.
They had a major part in bringing up the Algerian team to the final stages of the tournament, where they nearly entered into the last 16 stage. However, is they were canned then it would the similar case of the magnificent duo of Klose and Lukas Podolski. Both of them are Polish born, an issue that has brought quite a controversy among the two countries.
However, the two countries now lay at a standstill over the issue, as it would be quite demeaning to fight over two strikers that are in fact willing to play for Germany. Also if the birth place issue was raised then the German Boateng, will be reunited with his brother who he earlier told that he had nothing to do with, after he injured the to be German captain for the tournament Michael Ballack in a English Premier League game. The Portsmouth player and one of the best midfielders in the tournament, Kevin-Prince Boateng played for Ghana and impressed the world.
There has been a ruled introduced in Africa, after which a player from another country can play if he has ever played or attended sessions for another country or if they have family linked to the country. This allowed Didier Drogba and many other players from Africa to play for other nations.
Another player that could have played in an Africa country but instead planned to represent his sweet home but was the deeply disappointed Patrick Vierira. He lost the chance to represent Senegal and was omitted from the French team.
If each player was restricted to play from the country it was born in, then deep rivalries within teams would take place and also there is no possible way to curb these situations, as international law has actually allowed people to migrate from one country to another.
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