National allegiance and sporting citizenship: identity choices of ‘African’ footballers

Has the World Cup become more migratory? A comparative history of foreign-born players in national football teams, c. 1930-2018

“…In other words, the countries of origin of foreign-born players in national football teams are not random or part of a free market of choice but are often guided, or constrained, by colonial relations, specific migration histories, local and international legislation, and national traditions. For example, the (ethnic) diversity within the 1998 national team of France is often considered a vivid memory of its (colonial) migration history (Dubois, 2010;Storey, 2019).…”

“…1 At the 2018 World Cup, the national team of Morocco selected the most foreign-born players as three-fourths (seventeen out of twenty-three) of their footballers were born outside Morocco's territorial borders. Interestingly, this African country could even field a European-born squad (Kuper, 2018;Storey, 2019;van Campenhout & Oonk, 2018). When it comes to national football teams, which (arguably) tend to represent the nation, the presence of foreign-born players seems somewhat paradoxical and challenging to the spirits of FIFA's international competitions between, more or less, homogenous (sporting) nations (Bairner, 2001;Holmes & Storey, 2011;Keys, 2006).…”

The diversification of national football teams: Using the idea of migration corridors to explore the underlying structures of nationality changes amongst foreign-born players at the football World Cup

“…It is, for example, relatively easy to acquire the nationality of a foreign country for footballers who can prove a ‘genuine connection’ to that country through the nationality of one of their (grand)parent(s). In addition, players may also qualify for citizenship when they meet the specific residency requirements set for a country, including possible additional naturalisation conditions (Hall, 2012; Storey, 2020). Moreover, as these regulations are set, and adapted, by national governments, imbalances in the possibilities for people, and therefore also for football players, to acquire citizenship exist (Hall, 2012; Vink, 2017).…”

“…Therefore, besides selecting players with a migration background for their representative national football team, France also ‘lost’ several players to other national football teams. As the (extreme) example of France illustrates, national football teams seem to be increasingly represented by players who originate from other, often more varied, nationalistic and cultural backgrounds than ever before (Dubois, 2010; Maguire and Pearton, 2000; Storey, 2020).…”

“…Instead, they have used their eligibility to compete for a country other than the one in which they were born. By making use of national citizenship regimes, and in line with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) regulations around player eligibility, many foreign-born players have (purposely), in some cases literally, ‘swapped’ their nationality and national allegiance to another country, most notably to their parents’ country of origin, without having migrated to that country themselves (Jansen et al, 2018; Storey, 2020). Despite the increasing ubiquity of foreign-born players in national football teams, the dynamics and underlying structures have remained under-researched; this article, therefore, aims to gain a better insight into this phenomenon.…”