I hope England doesn't follow Croatia's

[capio]

lead...and pick foreign footballers for the national side. Spaniard Mikel Arteta is now eligible to play for England due to the length of time he has resided here. Several countries Croatia being one of them has given citizenship to foreigners to improve their national side... Eduardo for example. It makes a mockery of International sport.

I'd rather lose with 11 Englishmen than win with a team full of Spanish and Brazilian reserves.

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/7960803/Henry-Winter-Mikel-Artetas-England-call-up-would-be-a-step-into-heart-of-darkness.html

Croatia qualified for the Euros (at England's expense) and the vast majority of their goals were by a foreigner.

Germany have done it recently... France have done it, Portugal have done it... and a Middle east state Qatar (from memory) was offering instant citizenship to Brazillians for huge piles of cash... thankfully Fifa knocked that one the head.

Let's take back the beautiful game...

[boris]

You talk nonsense here: Eduardo was living in Croatia for 6 years, before he obtained CRO citizenship. He also married a CRO lady, speaks fluent Croatian (kajkavski dijalekt) and has a child born in Croatia. His father in law is Croatian, ditto mother in law, and the godfather to his child is Croatian etc

So what is your problem?

[capio]

How is that any different to Arteta? He's lived here for a similar period of time, you must be a Uk resident for 5 years and 6 years in actually (for paperworks to process) to become a British national... he speaks fluent English, I believe his child was born here.

It's exactly the same. Do you really think Da Silva would play for Croatia if he thought he'd make the Brazil team?

[prkbrk]

I seem to recall a certain Jamaican player getting capped by England- it has been claimed he even played for England while carrying a Jamaican passport

[3lions]

What Capio is saying in essence is perfectly true. The German team at the European Championship was very much an "international side" who just happened to represent Germany for some spurious reason or another. The rules need to be tightened. Either you are born in that country or have one natural parent from that country and that is it.

Elvan Abeylegesse won medals at the European athletic championships representing Turkey. She is really an Ethiopian who married and then divorced a Turk. Her claim was that Ethiopia didn't have the facilities necessary for her, this is despite the fact that Haile Gebrselassie has represented Ethiopia for years and is one of the greatest athletes of all time.

New Zealand regularly field Pacific Islanders in their rugby team both diminishing the effectiveness of those smaller teams and inflating their success.

[capio]

The Barnes situation is slightly different. Jamaica at the time was a crown dependency and all Jamaicans who moved to the Uk were entitled to British citizenship... a last outpost of empire building... a Satellite state if you wish.

Da Silva could have gone anywhere he had no allegiance to Croatia other than they were the biggest bidder.