World Cup Tune-Up: Do FIFA’s Flexible Eligibility Requirements Bestow Advantages to Certain Countries?

The Federacion Internacionale de Football Association (“FIFA”), international soccer’s governing body, provides “any person holding a permanent nationality that is not dependent on residence in a certain country is eligible to play for the representative teams of the association of that country.”[1] FIFA further provides that players who may be eligible to represent more than one country can do so if, in addition to holding the relevant nationality, they fulfill one of the following conditions: (1) they are born in the territory of the relevant association, (2) their biological mother or father was born on the territory of the relevant association, (3) a grandparent was born on the territory of the relevant association, or (4) they have lived on the territory of the relevant association for at least five years.[2] 

This flexibility for player eligibility in representing different countries gives rise to two questions: first, do certain countries consistently gain or lose in competing for talent? And if so, why?

Professor Chuka Onwumechili of Howard University proffers that African countries lose out the most.[3] While pointing to numerous examples of individual African players electing to play for European nations, he also points out that the most recent World Cup winners, France, featured 15 players of African descent (who were eligible to represent African countries) of a possible 23.[4] Professor Onwumechili does not proffer an explanation for the phenomenon.[5] Additionally, a sociological study reveals that in Africa, the lack of premier talent represented at the international level may have another cause, which is that very little talent is cultivated from Eastern African countries.[6] To this more localized issue, a lack of funding, personnel, infrastructure, and leadership seem to be primarily at fault.[7] While it is true that African countries lose out in the battle for top player representation, the issue expands to numerous countries on the world’s stage.

The case of Declan Rice is illustrative: Rice is English but has Irish grandparents, making him eligible to represent both countries.[8] After featuring for Ireland 20 times at the youth level, Rice ultimately opted to play for England after gaining a prominent role with his club team, West Ham United, of the English Premiership.[9] A natural hypothesis based on this example would be that players simply follow their clubs. As the best leagues (and therefore clubs) in the world are in Europe, it would make sense that a player chooses to represent a country where he is already developing his professional success. This could explain the Declan Rice cases and the aforementioned cases of players of African descent choosing to play for countries like France, Italy, and England.

The United States Men’s National Team (USMNT), however, proves a whopping outlier to this theory. In this current World Cup cycle alone, the USMNT has secured commitments from top global talents including Sergińo Dest,[10] Yunus Musah,[11], Ricardo Pepi,[12] and Antonee Robinson.[13] All of these players were eligible to play for and sought after by other countries, and all of them play their club ball abroad, in better leagues. However, for various, often intangible reasons they chose to represent the Stars and Stripes (Dest said he “based this decision on my feeling,”[14] and Pepi said it was a decision made “with my heart”[15]). What’s more, of the USMNT’s starters, none play at the club level within the United States save for an occasional minority.

So, what explains the variability in representation in international soccer? It could be that the sport reflects increasing global migratory patterns. Players at the World Cup representing countries other than their country of origin has occurred with more frequency and greater diversity over time.[16] As such, if the sport tracks global patterns, it could be that player choices are guided by historical relationships between countries.[17] Alternatively, an explanation may be that the international climate today has given rise to a “decoupling of citizenship from national identity,”[18] and that player choices deliberately eschew the notion that the team they play for represents their identity in some way beyond a professional choice. Although nothing conclusive can be drawn at this point, fans of the World Cup benefit from this added element of drama in watching their countries compete on the world’s greatest stage

Marc Osian is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLV.

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.
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[1] FIFA Legal Handbook, 75 (2021), https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/3d32b93a1a30430b/original/FIFA-Legal-Handbook.pdf.

[2] See id. at 76.

[3] See Chuka Onwumechili, African Countries Are Losing Out on Their Football Talent. They Need to Figure Out Why, The Conversation, (Jul. 20, 2018, 1:49am), https://theconversation.com/african-countries-are-losing-out-on-their-football-talent-they-need-to-figure-out-why-100039.

[4] See id (stating “There has to be a reason why top line players are not yet choosing to represent African countries. It’s time Africa’s top administrators tried to find out so that they can work to rectify the situation.”).

[5] See id.

[6] See Christian Ungruhu & Mads Backer Schmidt, Why are East African Players Absent in European Football? Localizing African Football Migration Along Structural Constraints, Colonial Legacies and Voluntary Immobility, 44 Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 397-401 (2020), available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0193723520919820.

[7] See id.

[8] See Squire Patton Boggs, ‘Football’s Coming Home’ … but to which country? FIFA’s National Team Eligibility rules Explained, 9 Nat’l Law Rev. (2019), https://www.natlawreview.com/article/football-s-coming-home-to-which-country-fifa-s-national-team-eligibility-rules

[9] See id.

[10] See Jeff Carlisle, Ajax Defender Sergino Dest Chooses US over Netherlands, ESPN (Oct. 28, 2019), https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usa/story/3975815/ajax-defender-sergino-dest-chooses-us-over-netherlands.

[11] See Jeff Carlisle, Why Yunus Musah chose the USMNT: Kinship with stars, connection with coaches and belief in the project, ESPN (Mar. 15, 2021), https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usa/story/4338441/why-yunus-musah-chose-the-usmnt-kinship-with-starsconnection-with-coaches-and-belief-in-the-project.

[12] See Lizzy Becherano, Ricardo Pepi describes choosing USMNT over Mexico as ‘best decision I made,’ 90 Min (Oct. 29, 2021), https://www.90min.com/posts/ricardo-pepi-choosing-usmnt-over-mexico-best-decision.

[13] See Ives Galarcep, England-born Robinson is fully committed to USMNT, and looks like left-back of the future, Goal.com (Sept. 7, 2018), https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/england-born-robinson-is-fully-committed-to-usmnt-and-looks-like-/dfinmw1ycr71mp5se7h95zkt.

[14] Carlisle, supra note 10.

[15] Rodrigo Serrano, Ricardo Pepi Explains why he chose USMNT over Mexico, AS.com (Oct. 6, 2021), https://en.as.com/en/2021/10/06/soccer/1633541595_629844.html.

[16] Gijs van Campenhout ET AL., Has the World Cup become more migratory? A comparative history of foreign-born players in national football teams, c. 1930-2018, 7 Compar. Migration Stud., 1 (2019), https://comparativemigrationstudies.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40878-019-0118-6.

[17] See id. at 12.

[18] See id. at 15.