Arteta for England

A couple of days ago a group of Everton supporters started campaigning for Mikel Arteta to join England ranks when he is legible for British passport in 2010. There were voices for Manuel Almunia to play for the national side too, as neither of these players was capped for Spain. This is just one of the many examples of recruiting foreigners to play for the country’s national team. This mostly happens in smaller countries, as the national federation tends to recruit foreign players that stand up in the domestic league. This is totally different than the case when a player has predecessors in a country other than his native one and he opts to play for that other country.

We are practically talking about buying players for the national team, which is something that should be strictly forbidden. I wonder why FIFA and UEFA did nothing about this problem and now we have Nigerians playing for Poland or Serbs playing for Azerbaijan and of course, Brazilians playing for everyone. If this continues I fear that we could soon see transfers between the national teams and what is the point of that. This is something that threatens to impair the beautiful game and if the governing bodies don’t act soon it could turn into a massive problem. I don’t believe that the FA will even consider Arteta as a possible national team player despite all his qualities and I have just taken him as an example of this problem. I sincerely hope that this will be eradicated and that the footballers will continue to play for their native country.

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