English FA Wants Foreign Players To Play For England

 

The Football Association says it is still looking into a number of foreign players to see whether they would be eligible to play for England. The search is being led by Dan Ashworth, the head of the FA's technical department, who led the appointment of Sam Allardyce as new England manager following Euro 2016.

Allardyce revealed last week that he had hoped to call-up Sevilla's Steven N'Zonzi, who lived in England for six years and played for Blackburn and Stoke City, but he was found to be ineligible after being capped previously for France's U21s. In the past, Spanish-born duo Manuel Almunia and Mikel Arteta have also been explored as well as Belgium-born Adnan Januzaj.

The FA has told said that looking abroad for players is a relatively new part of its scouting strategy, but does not guarantee foreign-born players will eventually play for the Three Lions. In order to be eligible to compete for England, rules state a person has to have lived in the country for at least five years. It's also possible that if a person's parents or grandparents were born in England they could potentially be considered. However, it gets complicated if a player has already represented another country, at which point it becomes FIFA's jurisdiction.

Ashworth said “It would be remiss of us not to have a look at every single player that is eligible to play for England. Just because we make an enquiry, does not mean we are necessarily going to follow it up. We would look at how they might qualify, on what grounds would they qualify, is it grandparents, is it parents, is it residency? And then, once we get all the facts, we make a decision on whether it is something to progress or not. We would actively look for any player that is eligible to play for England. The other nations do it, other sporting institutes do it as well. I think it would be remiss of us not to follow along the same lines. But just because we make an enquiry does not necessarily mean we are going to follow every single one up. It depends on the context and how they would qualify.”