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My own thoughts on why northern-born players suddenly decided to declare for the FAI around the mid-to-late 1990s (albeit in relatively small numbers on a yearly basis, and still so, to be honest) after no movement at all for the previous decades is as follows. Although I don't believe the Good Friday Agreement changed anything of legal substance as regards the eligibility of northern-born Irish nationals to play for the FAI, I suspect its signing and the period of recognition, acceptance, reconciliation, sugar and spice and all things nice leading up to it (and since) may well have changed mindsets whereby nationalists realised or became more aware, confident, comfortable and in tune with the idea that they didn't actually have to play for a British entity if they didn't want to. Admittedly, that's just speculation on my part, but I'm attempting to understand and rationalise why switches weren't in greater number when you might have expected sectarian and political tensions to be more significant. A gentleman's agreement clearly wasn't the reason because it's pretty apparent that one didn't exist.
Likewise, with any potential accusations of irredentism finally off their backs and looking less and less valid as far as the international community or international law were concerned, the FAI could get on with being less reluctant to accept northern players (in saying that, I don't know if they turned down approaches prior to Kernaghan or the likes of Ger Crossley; maybe someone could shed light?), and possibly even offering it as a serious option without the fear of a political stir, or what might have been a much worse political stir than the one the switches have actually caused. And then, it appears, the IFA intervened in 1999 when Boyce and O'Byrne met where the FAI voluntarily agreed not to make contact with players unless they volunteered their intentions first, although awareness of the option open to northern-born Irish nationals clearly remained, and especially in Derry where - exceptions like James McClean aside - the general tendency appeared and appears to be for Derry City's Derry-born players to play for the FAI. When Gibson decided to switch and the IFA made such a hoo-ha about it, I feel they shot themselves in the foot by further publicising - or advertising even - an option open to Irish nationals in the north. Most people still seem to be of the impression that Gibson was the first NI-born player to play for the FAI in modern times, which goes to show how little awareness of northern-born players playing for Ireland there was before the IFA kicked up the storm. The brouhaha has also had the effect of alienating nationalists, which has only driven them further away from the IFA and closer to the FAI. It has made the IFA appear hostile to nationalist interests expressions of identity. The real mystery is what possessed the IFA to believe the rules as they currently stand applied any differently to how they had done when they'd received clarification from FIFA in 1994 and acknowledged the right of northern-born Irish nationals to declare for the FAI in 1999.
I read on a forum, so not sure of its veracity, that Neil Lennon would rather have played for the south had he, in his own words, had the choice. He obviously did have a choice as he began playing for NI around the same time as Kernaghan declared for us, to the best of my knowledge. Clearly, however, if the above is true, he was not in the know or made aware of the option open to him. I've read similar talk about Pat Jennings.
Anyway, that's just my opinion, speculation, conjecture or whatever you want to call it, but it's an attempt at an explanation anyway.
But whose stated policy was it? The FAI's or the IFA's? According to CAS, as you mention, FIFA issued two dictats around 1950 only effective upon the IFA as regards confining player selection to their own territory.Originally Posted by geysir
I don't understand how the FAI selecting northern-born players for the Iberian tour goes against a "policy" of theirs that apparently stated that players from the south could not play for any other country. The two aren't related, are they? Am I missing something or has this just turned my head into mush?
Unrelated somewhat, this, but can anyone confirm if Mauro Camoranesi qualified to play for Italy through Italy-born grandparents or an Italy-born great-grandparent, as his Wikipedia states? It could have interesting implications for the application and interpretation of article 15. There's a guy here claiming that the great-grandparent claim isn't actually true in response to a question I asked in order to provoke further discussion: http://socqer.com/questions/553/unde...lay-for-italy/
My thinking is that if Camoranesi qualified by virtue of a great-grandfather, then he must have qualified via article 15 as he would not otherwise satisfy the sub-criteria of article 17. This, in turn, would surely imply that article 15 could be interpreted as a "granny rule" or even a "great-granny rule", maybe leaving open a possibility of, say, third, fourth or fifth generation Irish players being eligible to play for Ireland just so long as their citizenship was inherited along the lineage in line with the procedural requirements of Irish nationality law.
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