The concept of sports eligibility is an issue which is due to the different rules of international sports organizations, as well as different national laws on the conditions of granting citizenship, an issue which is in my opinion difficult to comprehensively grasp and solve. When I was dealing with this concept within my master thesis, football was one of the sports discipline where the conditions set by FIFA were one of the most strict and when all the requirements of that time were added up, it was very difficult for the players to achieve a change of sports eligibility.
However, last September, during the FIFA Congress, there were a number of changes to the rules governing sports eligibility within FIFA Statutes, which came into force immediately after their adoption and which changed the rules that the football world has followed since 2008.
At the very beginning of the change, a special working group was set up to draft new rules, which in its work followed the following principles:
- the sports eligibility can't exist without nationality
- the genuine link between the player and the member association
- prevention of abuse of rules - efforts to prevent "trafficking in citizenship"
- try to avoid the overly strict rules
- protection of the integrity of international sports competitions
In addition to the above-mentioned principles, European Law has also been taken into account when drafting the amended rules, including the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, which has addressed the issue of nationality in connection with sports rules on several occasions. [1]
An interesting thing when discussing sports affiliation is the fact that FIFA, as an international sports organization, has 211 member, while only 193 sovereign states are members of the UN. From these statistics it can be observed that these are definitely not two identical concepts and their differences must be kept in mind when applying the rules.
When we talk about the specific changes brought by the amendment, we are talking primarily about Article 9 of the Rules Governing the Application of the FIFA Statutes, namely Articles 9(2) b), 9 (2) c) and 9 (2) e), which I will analyze more in detail in the following paragraphs. First of all it must be said, that the change of sporting eligibility is generally prohibited, but Article 9 (2) and its various provisions provides exceptions based on which a change can take place. I also consider important to mention that, together with the amendment of the rules, FIFA also issued a Commentary on the rules governing the ability to play for national teams. [2]
Article 9 (2) b) - Obtaining the nationality
However, the first provision that has been amended is Article 9 (2) b), and its current wording is as follows:
A request to change association may be granted only in the following circumstances:
The player:
i) was fielded in a match in an official competition at any level (with the exception of “A” international level) in any kind of football for his current association;
ii) at the time of being fielded for his first match in an official competition in any kind of football for his current association, he did not hold the nationality of the association which he wishes to represent;
iii) at the time of being fielded for his last match in an official competition in any kind of football for his current association, he had not turned 21 years old; and
iv) meets any of the requirements provided in article 6 or article 7.
As for the concept of official competition, the commentary mentions all competitions for national teams organized either directly by FIFA or by any associated confederation (UEFA, CONCAF, CONMEBOL, AFC..). To have a better idea how this change may or may not work in the practice, let's take a look at the following examples:
The player was born on 1 January 1997 in country A. In January 2021, he acquired a citizenship of country B. During his career, he participated in official competitions as a member of national association of country A, playing one of the matches on 3 January 2015 and the other one on 20 September 2020, when he was already 23 years old. Just because of his age, it is not possible to change the member association in this case, when at the time of the last match of an official competition, the player was older than 21 years and thus did not meet the last of the above-mentioned conditions. In the following case, the situation is similar, the only difference is that the last match which the player played for the national team took a place on 20 June 2017, ie at the time when he was less than 21 years old. In this way, the player would meet all the required criteria of Article 9 (2) c) and so the change of sporting eligibility could take place in compliance with this article.
Article 9 (2) c) - Holding of nationality
Another amendment is the exception contained in the Article 9 (2) c). This provision deals with a situation where a player holds more than one citizenship already at the time when he was placed in a match for the national team of one of the states of which he holds the citizenship. The difference from the situation mentioned above in Article 9 (2) b) is that a player can participate in a match within an official competition at any level, including the international "A" level. As for the very term "international A level", the commentary explains it as "the highest level of the national football team, commonly known as the national senior team."
However, the condition of the above is that the matches the player at the international "A" level were a maximum of three, he was not older than 21 years when he played these matches and at the same time, more than 3 years have passed since the last match at the international "A" level. The must condition that must be met is that in the case of matches at the international "A" level, the match can't be a part of the main part of the FIFA World Cup or any main part of the tournament of affiliated confederations, such as the European Championship - EURO or the African Nations Cup.
I would like to demonstrate the application of this provision in practice again on a practical example:
The player was born on 1 January 1999 in country A. In 2007 he acquired the second nationality of country B and has held two nationalities since then. When he was 20 years old, in 2019, he took a part in several official competitions at the junior level and then, a year later, hr was fielded in an international "A" level match as a part of the EURO qualifications. In November 2023, he applied for a change of the member association so he could play for the national team of country B. Once again, we get into a situation where all of the requirements except of the age are met as at the time of the qualifications he was over 21 years of age. However, if the qualifying match had taken place a year earlier, there would have been nothing to prevent him from changing his member association in 2023. I have underlined the word qualifications twice to make it clear to the reader that while the rules allow for international "A" level matches, the main part of the competition, either in FIFA World Cup or in official confederation competition, such as is EURO.
Article 9 (2) e) - Loss of citizenship
The last issue that the FIFA working group dealt with when changing the rules is when a player loses the citizenship of a country in which he was a member of a national association. In this case, a change of sporting eligibility is possible even if the player was fielded in the match at the international "A" level and at the same time permanently lost the citizenship of the country he represented against the will on the basis of governmental authority. In this case, the player may begin to represent the national association of the country he wishes to represent and of which he is a national.
From the above-mentioned, it can be seen that the FIFA rules on the sporting eligibility have changed primarily in favor of the players. From my point of view, this is a step in the right direction, when during the player's career there may be a situation where it is more advantageous for him to change the member association, whether for personal or sports reason.
[1]ESD C-36
/74 Walrave and Koch v. Union Cycliste Internationale, Donà v. Mantero (Rozhodnutí č. 13/76) [1976] ECR 1333, Decision of ECJ - Bosman, C-415/93, 1995 [2] https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/commentary-on-the-rules-governing-eligibility-to-participate-for-representative-.pdf?cloudid=ro8mje8vw98yp3rvfbmi