HoH
I based my figures on yours, if you’re now revising them fair enough.

If you think there were plenty of jobs available in the 1980’s in Britain you clearly weren’t living where I was. The effect of mass emigration on parts of the UK has been catastrophic in my lifetime, far less in the last 150 years.


I’ve never said Irish history hasn’t had its fair share of horrors only that it isn’t alone in that. To use this history as the reason the Irish football team have a moral obligation to choose players who aren’t from Ireland is wrong in my opinion.


Being born in 1970 I’m not sure the relevance what you think Britain did in the 1800’s has with me however I’d again point out that ‘wilfully fucking around’ with other peoples homes was going on long before then and has continued to happen right up to the present day and not just by the British.


The origins of the original post were about Senna, that’s why I mentioned his background, Ailton has since been brought into it so I included him as well, I thought it was relevant for the thread, sorry.

For the record I don’t think Senna should be able to play for Spain, Ailton for Qatar, Matt Elliot for Scotland or all the countless other players who have played for countries other than the one they or their parents were born or brought up in. You and I seem to agree on this except in the case of Ireland.

AIATL

England France and Germany are three that spring to mind immediately. Some germans moved to america in the nineteenth century but that's it. English people generally don't do emigration, they do Colonization and retirement, frequently combining the two. They move somewhere warm like spain, australia or south africa, and eat sausages eggs and chips and sit around complaining that the Daily telegraph has gone to the dogs since they dropped oswald moseley as an editor. I'm talking about moving to a country because you can make more digging tunnels than being a teacher at home. Countries like Ireland, Italy, poland, spain, portugal, etc.
Sorry pal but that is just embarrassing. Go and take a class in European history and open your eyes when you’re next in England.


no you're a scot who lives in australia. your kids might well be australian, particularly if you marry an australian, but depending on how strong your ties to scotland were, and how many scottish people you lived with were, they might be scottish as well.

Not according the Australian government when I looked into it as a 22 year old.

Australia is also an odd example to use as it is supposedly a country based entirely on emigration. Substitute France or Spain for Australia and the situation is a lot more cut and dried. This argument isn't about someone who moved to australia in their youth playing for australia, it's about someone who moved to spain in his mid twenties playing for spain.

As it’s the only country I’ve ever been close to emigrating too, (assuming you don’t include my 3 and a half years on your island as emigrating although maybe you do) so it was the example I used. The ‘argument’ was about when you can become a national of a particular country, you felt that a someone ‘feeling’ Irish as a child was better grounds than someone choosing it as an adult, I was giving you an example of why that might not always be the case.

I think that's missing the point completely. Northern nationalists would consider themselves Irish, in the "32-counties-I-am-Irish" sense and the GFA says "yes you are, here is your passport." To compare this with Ailton being bunged a couple of million quid to play international football for qatar is either hopelessly missing the point, or being provocatively obtuse.

See my last answer. I’m not being deliberately obtuse or missing the point, you are.

AMMS wrote:


Excuse me??

I haven't "revised" any figures. I said, to begin with, that 45,000 people left Ireland per year in the 1980s. You then claimed that 400,000 people leaving the UK last year represented the same percentage of its population as the 45,000 leaving Ireland back then. I then said that this was a numerically incorrect statement, and demonstrated it by doing the simple mathematics required.

So please don't come out with this "you're now revising your figures" stuff.

AMMS wrote:


At no stage on this thread have I written anything about 1980s Britain and its jobs situation.

I'm not sure there is much point in having a discussion about this if you're going to just continually argue against things that I haven't actually said.

Bu the grandparent ruling is sometimes needed to allow people to play for the country "they or their parents were born or brought up in".

My brother (by a genuine accident of birth) was born in England but obviously (with two Welsh parents, four Welsh grandparents and having been brought up in the country from the age of 2-14) considers himself Welsh.

If you cancel the grandparent's place of birth rule then you deny his son the right to play for Wales despite the fact (by your criteria) it is a country his "parent was born or brought up in" yet my son still qualifies even though my brother and I were brought up in Wales for exactly the same amount of time.

It's a fun historical argument and everything this, and I've skimmed some of the earlier posts a bit, but with regard to the Irish situation surely the fact that the GFA (rightly) confers the right of dual citizenship on people living in northern Ireland - on the grounds that a sizeable part of its population sees it as contigious with the state right next door - kind of settles the argument. It's an unusual set-up but it's a fact on the ground and if you want to challenge it, agitate to get the GFA undone or rewritten. And, you know, good luck with that.

HoH - Funnily enough I was apologising, you originally said the population of Ireland was ‘4 and a bit million’ which was where I got the about 1% figure, I also said ‘about 1%’ rather than exactly 1%. You then changed/clarified the population which is why I said fair enough, I really wasn't being smart.

You also said
What you are also forgetting is that, today, plenty of new arrivals are also entering the UK, whereas in the 1980s absolutely nobody was moving to Ireland because there were no jobs available, so the people flooding out were not being replaced.

So was I pointing out that there weren’t many jobs anywhere in the 80’s, not just Ireland. Irrelevant? Possibly.

I take it you agree with the rest of it then?!!

Harri - I said ‘born or brought up in’ so your brothers kid should be OK when I take over FIFA.

E10 – I feel I may well have more success than I’m having here. I agree with you entirely I’m just trying to point out the similarity between ALL the countries that do it and the hypocrisy when some criticise others for it.

AMMS wrote:


Okay.

"Four and a bit million" is what the population of Ireland is now.

No, I don't agree with the rest of it. I think there is a world of difference between a Ray Houghton and an Ailton. Ireland's history has been so marred and distorted by emigration that I don't think it is fair to deny the offspring of those who were forced to leave this country during the bad years the chance to play for its national team. Similarly, I'm all for allowing the likes of Joe Simunic (Australia-born, Bosnian Croat parentage) to play for Croatia.

I have just had a glance at Ailton's Wikipedia page, and his career spiralled into nothingness after he left Schalke in 2005, though in fairness he was 31 by then. He is currently playing for a lower-mid-table outfit in Ukraine.

Exactly the opposite is the case. I'd rather have a player's upbringing define his eligibility to play for a country than his blood.



That's putting citzenship on the same level as race. Would you say all black players are 100% African?

Defensive minded wrote:


Well, what was their upbringing? You can't tell without looking into their living room, but if the Kovac brothers were sat there as kids with their dad watching Germany v Yugoslavia I bet I could guess which side they were rooting for. That said, if they'd wanted to play for Germany, that's fine too. It should be up to them. And the same goes the likes of Giggs as well, for that matter.

Incidentally, years ago I used to teach a woman who was the Kovac brothers' kindergarten teacher in Wedding. If only I'd thought to ask her.

Agreed on the blood thing, though. That's just daft, and in Germany's case at least, a huge part of the reason why children of immigrants don't identify with the country they grew up in.

Also, were they German citizens when they decided to play for Croatia? I know plently of people of Yugoslavian and Turkish extraction who were born and brought up here but don't have German citizenship because they'd have to give up their old nationality, and suffer a fair degree of inconvenience because of it. That would have had a bearing on their choice too.

Defensive minded wrote:


Of course I wouldn't, that would be insane (quite apart from the fact that "Africa" is a meaningless entity in international football terms). What has it got to do with the fact that Robert and Niko Kovac's parents are Croatian, and that, therefore, they have every right to play for Croatia?

Well, that's where we disagree. I don't think someone should be able to play for a country due to his heritage. I'm aware of the rules, but I thought this debate was also about whether we agree with the rules.

Alderman, I can see what you mean with the Turks. I think it's a bit different with the Croats.

This feeling of national identity is quite often distorted due to living in a different country. I've heard of several Germans with Turkish heritage who after actually living in Turkey, realised they were more German than Turkish.

From my own experience, I can say taht I feel more British living in Germany than I do when I'm actually in Britain.

Hiero & AIATL: OK, the Republic of Ireland's emigration in the early 1980s (when I lived there, and included in HH's earlier example) was higher than Britain's rate, tended to be of young jobseekers rather than the middle-aged and retiring, and wasn't matched by large-scale immigration as in Britain. It was also, significantly, 60 years after RoI became an independent country. Hardly comparable to the famine years.

All that said, Hiero's figures look a little low on the RoI's total population in the 80s, but high on net migration. Thus tending to narrow the gap in comparable rates with Britain.

I agree broadly with AMMS: any RoI fan moaning about other countries' Brazilians can hardly be surprised at gentle teasing. Yes, you suffered more emigration than most. You've also enjoyed far more ringers. Most of whom grew up in England, not Northern Ireland.

E10- did your skim reading include FIFA's circular of 18 June I linked to above? It does seem to suggest that citizenship of a country isn't enough per se to qualify to play for it, if neither the player, parents nor grandparents were born there and the player hasn't lived there for the qualifying period. Many nationalists in NI will be thus affected. Nobody on the thread is suggesting Irish nationalists be denied their RoI citizenship. So surely if anyone needs to lobby for a change, it's the FAI to FIFA?

Harri: Calm down. No offence intended. I was talking in general terms; not suggesting Giggs, nor you, nor anybody should or shouldn't feel Welsh or English as a result; I was conceived, born and lived as an infant in three different countries, which may explain why the term (accident of birth) is less loaded for me.

I hadn't specified it, but how about three years residence- at any age- qualifying to play international football? I think this is a better indication of where someone's 'from' than their grandparents' birthplace. I mention school years largely because those three years residence, albeit involuntarily, will likely affect someone's sense of association with place more than working there as an adult.

Ursus and E10: I don't remember significant differences in confectionery availability between Dublin, Belfast and London in the early 80s (though it was clearly more expensive in Dublin). Both Irish cities were pretty bleak, in their different ways: the former obviously spared the widespread political violence, but Belfast was visibly newer, as urban rebuilding started there earlier. And not just because of the bombing. Many of Dublin's attractions (O'Connell Street, the National Museum, what was left of the old town, even pubs) looked dreary and uninterested in attracting new custom. As HH mentioned, economically 1983 was characterised by very high taxes, with little disposable cash and the other effects- second hand cars, half empty shops and restaurants- as well as emigration.

PS I seem to have annoyed both the RoI and Welsh camps on this one, so just to sum up: the only players I'd want to ban playing international football are those who've already appeared for a different country's full, u-21 or u-19 side and who are over 18 years old.

As for preferring to see the NI side made up entirely of players who grew up and went to school there, that's just a personal quirk and I don't expect the majority in Ahoghill or anywhere to agree. Nor do I want to deny Ryan Giggs, or anyone else their national identity. But if someone like him wants to play for England after 10 years in the country, they should be able to.

Alderman, I can see what you mean with the Turks. I think it's a bit different with the Croats.

It is now, but only since they've been in the EU. For example, I have a Slovenian friend who was born here and studied pharmacy. Her problem was that as a non-German she wouldn't have been able to practise without restrictions, but then she'd have had to renounce her Slovenian citizenship. It's no problem now, but it was a big headache at the time. Turks, as far as I'm aware, and Serbs for that matter, still have the same problem.

Regarding NI nationalists playing for the ROI, is it a unique problem? I was just thinking of, say, ethnic Hungarians in Romania. What's the situation there? Are they entitled to Hungarian passports and therefore eligible to play for Hungary?

AB: in a referendum in 2004, lobbied for by diaspora organisations in Romania and elsewhere, Hungary voted 51% in favor of giving ethnic Hungarians abroad dual citizenship. But the plan failed because the low turnout (38%) was insufficient to get 25% support from the whole electorate.

I think Ad Hoc and Purves have mentioned on previous threads that Hungarians in Romania have lobbied more for autonomy (political, language, education etc.) within the country.

Ah, very interesting. Thanks.

This is the crux. I think most football fans don't want rugby or cricket-style residency qualifications.

National football, like all national sports, is a wonderful quirk and, in its way, one of the few links to the Corinthian beginnings of the sport. What other sector would you be allowed to go away from your job to work for someone else and run the risk of career-threatening injury?(actually, the TA now I think about it but I digress)

As such, it is hard to make it an exact science and one that, in the main, has been handled well as far qualification is concerned. The Home Nations issue and fast-tracking of citzenship are complications but small ones

Alderman, I can see what you mean with the Turks. I think it's a bit different with the Croats.

It is now, but only since they've been in the EU.

Croatia isn't in the EU

Good grief, you're right. They're on the way in, mind, aren't they?

In theory. But then so are Turkey. (But expansion in general is pretty much on hold indefinitely at the moment, I think)