Eligible to play, but not to belong to the nation?A short history of FIFA’s player eligibility regulations and the sensitive issues of national identity

“If we don’t take care about the invaders from Brazil, then we could have problems at the 2014 and 2018 World Cup finals.” This typical “what if” (over)reaction by former FIFA President Joseph Blatter relates to the growing controversies and uneasiness around the representation of the football nation by foreign-born football players and players with migration backgrounds. In this article, the authors look at the historical developments in FIFA’s player’ eligibility regulations to see how this legal structure, and the changes within, feeds into the sensitive issue of national belonging. They do so by taking the, rather extreme, case of the Qatar and its representative football team as an illustrative example.

Introduction

In the last two decades, the Qatari men’s national football team was often criticised in international media for using “nationalised”, foreign-born football players to represent the country. In 2004, the public controversy was focused on three Brazilian-born players, to know Aílton, Dedé and Leandro, who were accused by FIFA of having the intention to sell and swap their Brazilian nationality for a Qatari one. By doing so, they would have instantly become eligible to play for Qatar’s national football team. Striker Aílton was said to be offered USD 1.2 million for swapping his nationality. However, the motivation of these...

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Eligible to play, but not to belong to the nation?
A short history of FIFA’s player eligibility regulations and the sensitive issues of national identity

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