This is only the case if he has formally requested a switch to Sweden or if he needed to? If he hasn't made an official request yet then there's nothing tying him to Sweden moreso than us.Originally Posted by geysir
I'm not bothered about Ryan too much, he has chosen his nest of convenience.
Afaiu, Ryan can only reverse the switch, if uncapped at any level he can switch back to his original country Luxembourg.
That falls under 9.5.
To me it looks like he would not be allowed to switch to Ireland. Maybe FIFA are only thinking dual nationals here and not for players like Ryan who is trio national. Maybe we need another new rule for Trio Nationals.
Yeah, that's the new rules if it gets approved.
Au contraire, the odds are that the more screwed on journalists will be on here to find out what's what. One our most learned members, Danny Invincible wrote the treatise on FIFA eligibility.
Now he'll probably have to update it, hopefully he will return here.
Eirambler's question assumed Ryan had already applied to FIFA for the switch. And Ryan would have to apply to FIFA to switch from Luxembourg, no question.
It is more likely that Ryan's request to transfer to ireland was halted at the FIFA office, regardless of any intervention by Luxembourg FA.. FIFA would have been presented with a list of Ryan's Luxembourg games and a copy of his irish passport.
Since he has personally stated his declaration for Sweden and has been quoted how happy he is with that decision, with their style of play and longs to play for them at a Finals, perhaps offering an indirect little barb at Ireland's style of play and lack of Finals appearances.
I think it's fair enough to opine that he has chosen his nest and not likely to reconsider, even if he was eligibile to.
So why wouldn't Callum Robinson have been halted too so ?
As I understood it Luxembourg kicking up has caused all this.
It's all down to quirk in our national law with the foreign births register, which I imagine FIFA were entirely unaware of prior to Luxembourg kicking off alright.
Decided to go and read the full document before posting further, so that hopefully what I post from here on is correct...
So it appears that there are positives and negatives to what's in the document from an Irish POV - hopefully we can benefit from the positives and defend ourselves as best we can against the negatives.
The positives as I see it:
- It seems to resolve the Irish foreign birth register issue for the most part
- Dan Crowley can now play for us
- The likes of Bamford and Mikey Johnston, among others potentially caught by the FBR issue can also play for us if they decided they wanted to (doubt either of those two will)
- Also, some previous switchers can, if they wished to, switch back to us (if they have never played for the country they switched to competitively at underage level or won any senior caps)
- Future granny rule qualifiers won't be ruled out of playing for us if they play underage for another country, only if they represent that country's senior team
- If someone like Joe Hodge decided to switch to England, he wouldn't automatically be lost to us, it would only happen if he played a competitive underage game for them or got a senior cap
- Callum Robinson is actually eligible to play for us now, which is nice!
The negatives:
- Obafemi is no longer Irish confirmed - as things stand he could be capped by England or Nigeria from November next year onward
- We can't confirm the likes of Smallbone by playing him in the Nations League or playoffs, until he's capped after his 21st birthday or we cap him four times.
- We can't confirm any dual national aged under 21 for us unless we cap them four times (possibly including at least one competitive cap?) or cap them at a tournament finals
- If Johansson has sent through his paperwork for Sweden he now can't play for us (if he hasn't sent it through he would now be eligible for Ireland, although that ship has sailed I think)
- Someone like Marcus McGuane, who played competitively for us at underage and then played competitively for England at underage, still cannot switch back to us because of those competitive appearances. This seems to rule out Grealish for us as well (unlikely he was going to switch back anyway).
- it's just a lot harder to understand overall
- there's likely to be a lot more South Americans playing for middle east and far east nations as a result of this
Obviously all this is subject to the document being ratified by FIFA next month, though that will most likely be a formality.
All in all, not as bad as I had originally feared. Feel free to correct me if any of the above is wrong, it really is a minefield now with so many different rules for different situations.
Last edited by Eirambler; 20/08/2020 at 1:51 PM.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
But jack grealish like Johansson sent in his paperwork. Surely they are either both gone or both available ?
Apparently not. Grealish hasn't yet played for England so would be allowed to switch back to Ireland.
Similarly Johansson hasn't played for Sweden so would be allowed to switch back to Luxembourg.
The problem for us with Johansson is that, if his Sweden switch has gone through, we're now his third country and there doesn't seem to be any provision for a third country in the new regulations.
Edit: Looks like Grealish is ineligible also after playing for England under 21s. So they're probably both ineligible, but for different reasons!
Last edited by Eirambler; 20/08/2020 at 1:53 PM.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
This is the only one I interpreted differently. Why can't he switch back? He hasn't played 3 times at senior level or played for England over the age of 21. My interpretation is he can switch after 3 years have passed since his last England appearance? Why is he different to Grealish?
I could be wrong too!
OK, so I'm interpreting Section 9, part 5 of the document.
5. A player that was:
a) granted a change of association; and
b) was not fielded in a match in any (official or unofficial) competition in any kind of football by the
new association,
may request a change of association back to his former association provided he continues to hold
the nationality of such association.
I took that to mean that McGuane can't switch back because he represented England competitively after he switched from us.
Were any of Grealish's England Under 21 caps competitive? If they were then he would be in the same position as McGuane - they could actually both still be ineligible?
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Yeah he played in the 2017 U21 Euros for them. Looks like they're both still ineligible so!
He was an unused sub in every game at the finals though.
According to transfermarkt he played 7 times for England Under 21s - 6 friendlies and 73 minutes in one European championship qualifier. Quite possibly that one appearance in the qualifier is what now makes him ineligible for us.
It says any game, official or unofficial though. So as soon as you played a minute for England, he became ineligible for us forever.
When does this lunacy of a law change get formally decided?
FIFA Congress September 18th. It's an online event, I think the rule changes will be ratified with little or no debate to be honest.
It will be hard to take. If we lose a player under these proposals. So obafemi could play and score against Slovakia and let's say Bosnia also and then say Im off guys .
No he'd have to wait three years from his last Ireland cap to switch. But we haven't capped him since November 2018. So he could switch next year (I don't think he will, by the way - he's just the most obvious example).
Oh so with the new rule. Would Rice of had to have waited 3 years as well or friendly games still dont count in any way
Yes exactly that. The wording is below
v) at least three years have passed since being fielded for his last match at “A” internationallevel in any kind of football for his current association, whether in an official competition or non-official competition;
I think overall this is very good for us. It clears up the foreign births register issue while also putting a bigger penalty on players like Declan Rice. Can't be happy to take friendly caps and play for another country a few months later. We don't want to be giving time to those players anyway and this forces their hand more.
The only potential negative from this is Obafemi and even then, he's an unlikely flight risk.
In future if we cap a player, they're locked out of international football for 3 years if they try to switch or if any granny rule players decide to switch then they're good to go.
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