When I was a little boy there was one thing that seemed really simple to me. If you were good enough, and if you were English, you could one day play for England. How naïve I was. Apparently it’s a lot less straightforward than that.
An issue that has been simmering on the back burner since nation-less Adnan Januzaj starred in Man United’s 2-1 win at Sunderland last weekend has now been brought very much to boiling point when England’s Jack Wilshire threw in his two cents this week.
The issue isn’t about what constitutes an England player, that’s simple, it’s someone who is English. The issue isn’t even what makes someone English, the laws on that are pretty clear. No, the debate that’s raging at the moment is what would make us completely accept a player as English.
Jack Wilshire was relatively non-accepting when asked his opinion earlier in the week. “If you live in England for five years it doesn’t make you English”. A fair point. Having lived in England my whole life I consider myself English. I’m not especially patriotic about it, but I’m attached enough to my ‘Englishness’ to acknowledge that five years in Italy wouldn’t make me Italian. And I’d imagine it’s the same for many sportsmen and women.
If you ask anyone where they are from they know the answer, it’s already built in. Ryan Giggs has lived in England since the age of 7, long before his first Wales cap. He would have been forgiven for choosing to play his international football for England, he certainly would have been able to grace many a World Cup or European Championship during his illustrious career. Something that he has been unable to do with Wales. But, it was never a decision that Giggs felt that he had to make. Born in Cardiff, to Welsh parents, Ryan Giggs has always known that he is Welsh. So a desire to play for any other nation has never been there.
It’s this attitude slowly disappearing from the consciousness of the modern footballer that is making this debate more and more prevalent. Much like Giggs, each player today knows where he’s from, but a desire to play at the highest level is possibly outweighing any allegiance to a nation.
Take the story of Chris Birchall, the Port Vale midfielder born in England to predominantly English parents. Birchall would have gone through life knowing that he was English. But a career at local club Port Vale as well as others like Coventry City, Carlisle United and St Mirren was unlikely to put him on the England radar.
But, due to the fact that his mother was born in Port of Spain, Birchall got wind of the fact that he was eligible to play for Trinidad and Tobago. Birchall went on to win 43 caps for the island country (before his recent international retirement), including 3 appearances at the World Cup in 2006. Something that he never would have had the chance to do had he have kept his allegiance with England. It’s stories like this that have tempted others to follow suit but many feel that this sets a dangerous precedent.
Former England striker Stan Collymore tweeted this evening “If we don’t have sane eligibility criteria, International Football becomes a club game. May as well scrap it at this point”. It’s true, if people are able to just pick and choose their nation then even something as monumental as the World Cup becomes redundant.
On the other hand of course it can be argued that this is just the way the wind is blowing these days. As England football fans, we are opposed to the changes as we are not used to them. Maybe it’s something we should be doing simply to catch up.
I’m sure that the French still have plenty of affinity for World Cup winners Patrick Viera and Marcel Desailly, despite them being born in Senegal and Ghana respectively. It’s a culture that is creeping into English sport as well. One of the single greatest moments in British sporting history, that will live on in the form of countless TV replays for decades, is surely the Gold medal success of Mo Farrah, CBE, at the London 2012 Olympics. The fact that he was born and raised in Somalia is something that we don’t really hear spoken about now and presumably will less and less as time passes and Farrah’s legend grows.
We were just as happy to celebrate the success of Kenyan born Chris Froome in the 2013 Tour De France or South African born Justin Rose who won golf’s 2013 US Open. Jack Wilshire’s comments also drew the ire of South African born cricketer Kevin Pietersen. KP has captained the England cricket team on numerous occasions and celebrated Ashes victories in 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2013. And he’s not alone, England’s Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott were also born in South Africa. But you would struggle to find any England Cricket fans who didn’t enjoy these famous victories over Australia, despite the South African influence.
As English football fans we seem to be less accepting of this situation. We’ve always been quite unhappy with the two foreign managers we’ve employed. But it was easy for us to resent them because ultimately they didn’t bring success.
We don’t know the international future of young Adnan Junazaj yet. As pre-conceived ideas slowly change the nation seems split. Many are hoping that this promising midfielder pledges his future to England. Others aren’t that bothered, after all, he’s from Belgium anyway.
I truly believe that this is an issue that threatens the future of the international game and the prestige around representing your country. But I also believe that if it brings us a World Cup or two we probably won’t care that much.