Autumn Internationals

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, nadera78 said:

It seems as if football changed its eligibility rules when I wasn't looking. It used to be that once a player appeared in a competitive senior game for his country he was locked into playing for them and no-one else. Now it appears that you can switch if you have played no more than 3 competitive senior matches before turning 21.

More and more sports are allowing players to switch between nations, albeit with different ways of regulating it.

I never thought Football would go down that route. It obviously seems designed to stop larger nations capping young players and tying them in on the off chance that they may want them down the line.

[Tommygilf]

13 minutes ago, Damien said:

I never thought Football would go down that route. It obviously seems designed to stop larger nations capping young players and tying them in on the off chance that they may want them down the line.

Cap and trap as they say.

In reverse it was also what many Irish fans wanted the FAI to do to Grealish and Rice.

[nadera78]

41 minutes ago, Damien said:

I never thought Football would go down that route. It obviously seems designed to stop larger nations capping young players and tying them in on the off chance that they may want them down the line.

There are just so many people eligible for multiple nations these days (IIRC Gareth Southgate said half the players in England's age group teams are also eligible for other countries) and international sports bodies are under pressure to at least be seen to understand and make some allowance for that. It also, as RL can attest, increases competitiveness in tournaments.

Edited September 2, 2021 by nadera78

[nadera78]

40 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

So they did. That passed me by as well. Change made last September.

I only noticed it in an article about Greenwood being left out of the England squad and Jamaica sniffing around. 

[The Frying Scotsman]

On 31/08/2021 at 20:36, Big Picture said:

Other than a small percentage (say 20%) who are non-citizens but are eligible for citizenship I think all players in an International should be citizens of the country they represent.

How do you become a citizen of Wales?

Or the Cook Islands?

Or England. What is an English citizen?

Should all Ireland players have to be Irish citizens?

Thanks.

[ATLANTISMAN]

1 minute ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

How do you become a citizen of Wales?

Or the Cook Islands?

Or England. What is an English citizen?

Should all Ireland players have to be Irish citizens?

Thanks.

My oldest boy was born in Moscow and ended up with a rugby scholarship at a boarding school in Scotland he was playing for Wasps juniors at the time and the SRU were desperate for young players he was about as Scottish as a curry (Actually thinking about it there are some great curry houses in Glasgow LOL:)

My wife recently acquired her UK citizenship and told me that the language test was hilarious (She speaks 4 languages fluently) So I guess nowadays its not just birthright to qualify but residency and also affiliation I am told that there are quite a few decent polish rugby and Gaelic football players in Ireland now:)

 

Paul

 

Paul

[Tommygilf]

51 minutes ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

How do you become a citizen of Wales?

Or the Cook Islands?

Or England. What is an English citizen?

Should all Ireland players have to be Irish citizens?

Thanks.

Exactly, can of worms

[The Hallucinating Goose]

3 hours ago, nadera78 said:

It seems as if football changed its eligibility rules when I wasn't looking. It used to be that once a player appeared in a competitive senior game for his country he was locked into playing for them and no-one else. Now it appears that you can switch if you have played no more than 3 competitive senior matches before turning 21.

More and more sports are allowing players to switch between nations, albeit with different ways of regulating it.

Yeah and that would mean that a player could potentially play in a couple of world cup or euros games and play for a different nation at the next World Cup or euros, which if a player did that in league fans would think it was ridiculous but because its football nothing would get said about it. 

[17 stone giant]

10 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Yeah and that would mean that a player could potentially play in a couple of world cup or euros games and play for a different nation at the next World Cup or euros, which if a player did that in league fans would think it was ridiculous but because its football nothing would get said about it. 

As a football fan, I would find it absolutely ridiculous if a player played in a major tournament for one team, and then two or four years later played for a different team in another major tournament. If that's what football is allowing, I think that's a massive mistake that would make a mockery of international football. Friendlies are one thing, but when you're talking about competitive games, that's a whole different thing. Even more so when it's the tournament stage of a World Cup or European Championship.

[gingerjon]

2 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Yeah and that would mean that a player could potentially play in a couple of world cup or euros games and play for a different nation at the next World Cup or euros, which if a player did that in league fans would think it was ridiculous but because its football nothing would get said about it. 

The World Cup and major continental tournaments are specifically excluded from the three caps. Play one game in those and you’re locked in.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

2 hours ago, gingerjon said:

The World Cup and major continental tournaments are specifically excluded from the three caps. Play one game in those and you’re locked in.

Ah well that's good then, didn't realise this, thanks for clarifying. 

[Big Picture]

9 hours ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

How do you become a citizen of Wales?

Or the Cook Islands?

Or England. What is an English citizen?

Should all Ireland players have to be Irish citizens?

Thanks.

Seeing that lacrosse is a sport which uses citizenship as the criteria and England, Wales and Scotland are all represented separately in lacrosse which also has an Ireland team rather than separate teams for the Republic and Northern Ireland, clearly there are ways.

Players born in any of those countries would obviously be deemed to be citizens of the country where they were born.  In cases of naturalization I can think of two options: a player naturalized in a multi-national state like Britain could be deemed to a citizen of the country where he or she lived when naturalized, or possibly he or she could elect which of those countries to represent.  Players naturalized in Northern Ireland could be deemed (or elect to be deemed) to be citizens of Ireland for this purpose.

Players linked by ancestry with a country which allows descendents to gain citizenship there can always apply for that citizenship too as they're already eligible under the relevant law.

[Sammo]

13 hours ago, Big Picture said:

Seeing that lacrosse is a sport which uses citizenship as the criteria and England, Wales and Scotland are all represented separately in lacrosse which also has an Ireland team rather than separate teams for the Republic and Northern Ireland, clearly there are ways.

Players born in any of those countries would obviously be deemed to be citizens of the country where they were born.  In cases of naturalization I can think of two options: a player naturalized in a multi-national state like Britain could be deemed to a citizen of the country where he or she lived when naturalized, or possibly he or she could elect which of those countries to represent.  Players naturalized in Northern Ireland could be deemed (or elect to be deemed) to be citizens of Ireland for this purpose.

Players linked by ancestry with a country which allows descendents to gain citizenship there can always apply for that citizenship too as they're already eligible under the relevant law.

But how do you account for differences in citizenship rules across countries? 
 

Taking extreme examples, you need to be resident in Lichtenstein for 30 years to get citizenship, whereas for Malta, Montenegro, Cyprus, you can buy it.

All using citizenship does is creates an uneven playing field. I don’t mind how Union does it - birth, birth of parents, birth of grandparents, or 5 years residency. Maybe residency could be longer or you could drop grandparents, but concrete rules across all countries is better than citizenship IMO 

[DC77]

On 31/08/2021 at 14:37, Big Picture said:

Not quite, Wikipedia lists 34 players on their roster for their upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers, 12 of whom play in England.  In any case though where they play doesn't matter as no one seriously thinks that a poor country like Jamaica could support a major pro team let alone a major pro league. 

At a quick glance it looks like most of the Jamaican soccer team are Jamaicans by birth, so again it's a case of a few heritage players strengthening a team primarily comprised of players who spent their formative years in Jamaica.  That's a far cry from a team full of players who only qualified by heritage, plus it's only one out of the 100+ national soccer teams in the world.

Agree that the issue is entire heritage teams (which RL is rife with) not heritage players.

On 31/08/2021 at 12:57, Tommygilf said:

For those complainin about "fake" national sides. 15 of the Jamaica Football team squad play in England.

Heritage players are not the issue, heritage teams are.

More crucially, the sport has a significant presence in Jamaica. Its biggest name Bolt messaging the other day about Ronaldo rejoining Man Utd. It’s most famous export Bob Marley spent more time playing the game than making music. 

On 02/09/2021 at 10:43, nadera78 said:

It seems as if football changed its eligibility rules when I wasn't looking. It used to be that once a player appeared in a competitive senior game for his country he was locked into playing for them and no-one else. Now it appears that you can switch if you have played no more than 3 competitive senior matches before turning 21.

More and more sports are allowing players to switch between nations, albeit with different ways of regulating it.

Heritage players are not the issue, heritage teams are.

 

There’s a great deal of naivety the way this issue is looked at on here. I’ve seen this naivety peddled out previously (“Jack Charlton’s Ireland full of non Irishmen” etc.)

In our best XI we had six Irish players, and five non Irish born players. Yes having a native presence is important (which those six players represent), but the MAIN reason it’s important is it signifies the sport has a presence in the country, a grass roots, a following. And the following for football in Ireland is huge, more than any other sport. Having ZERO native born players signifies the sport has no presence in a country, no grass roots, thus no interest to work with.

An Ireland RL team with XIII blokes from Yorkshire/Aus has never generated much/any interest in the media, nor among the populous. There’s no grass roots (which as I said, native players would represent), no following. Scotland are in a similar boat with a heritage team, and they play internationals in what looks like a community field.

On 01/09/2021 at 21:19, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I couldn't give a toss what other sports have as their eligibility rules, that's up to them, they don't dictate what we do in our sport and we shouldn't run our sport based on what others do. We are our own thing just like they are theirs and we've chosen a set of rules for international eligibility that suits us not what suits football, union, cricket, basketball, ice hockey, kabaddi, goat polo or whatever other sport you can think of.

All I care about is seeing an entertaining game of rugby league and I couldn't really care less who is playing for what team to achieve that. 

Eligibility rules (as I’ve touched on above) is a secondary issue, the prime issue is the lack of grass roots.

No grass roots, no following, no interest. THIS is the main problem, and no native players is merely a product of this problem.

 

 

[UTK]

Scotland have announced their extended squad. Looks like a fairly decent squad to me and I reckon there's a good chance it'll make quite an interesting game.

https://www.scotlandrl.com/2021/09/27/extended-bravehearts-squad-named/?fbclid=IwAR37grACmYySch5JNveVPSOk68mx--G-kUCa9Y0Ojgu5ame8ivgBAmF_w98

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

6 hours ago, UTK said:

Scotland have announced their extended squad. Looks like a fairly decent squad to me and I reckon there's a good chance it'll make quite an interesting game.

https://www.scotlandrl.com/2021/09/27/extended-bravehearts-squad-named/?fbclid=IwAR37grACmYySch5JNveVPSOk68mx--G-kUCa9Y0Ojgu5ame8ivgBAmF_w98

Nice to see a genuine International Rugby League post rather than the usual old moaning eligibly ramblings.

Is the Jamaica v Scotland game due to be broadcast in anyway, such as on the our league app?